LOL. I missed that!
Auto generated text from the voice. Done on the cheap without human revision.
Rich, creamery butterâŚ
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The most interesting thing about Crameri speaking out is that he is actually publicly speaking about the Saga. The Non Disclosure Agreements the players and others were made to sign to access their payouts may be fading into insignificance. Maybe it will prompt a lot more to speak out about the injustice and the way they were treated.
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Story of my life
Xavier Campbell now free to speak , reported in the Hun ( behind paywall).
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And .. ?
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Speaking behind a paywall is very Xavier Campbell.
Free access to the article with every slab of Travla soldâŚ
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Former Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell on supplements saga, Ben Ruttenâs sacking and Saudi Arabia
Xavier Campbell was the Essendon CEO in the clubâs darkest days. Now, he lifts the lid to Jay Clark on being blindsided during the supplements saga, Ben Ruttenâs sacking and big business in Saudi Arabia.
Jay ClarkChief Football Writer
9 min read
August 2, 2025 - 5:00AM
News Sport Network
Chief Executive Xavier Campbell hands in his resignation in 2022.
Xavier Campbell and his family needed a break.
The former Essendon chief executive was only 33 when he stepped into the biggest firestorm in Australian sport more than a decade ago.
The club had contentiously âself-reportedâ to the AFL and ASADA over concerns about inappropriate supplement use in 2013.
And when he was elevated from marketing boss to CEO in 2014, it became Campbellâs job to firstly not only help lead the playersâ defence, but then ultimately spearhead the rescue mission when 34 players were banned in 2016.
The Essendon banned 34. Picture: Getty Images
That harrowing four-year period threatened to not only wipe out the team, but break the entire club.
But it was the unnerving uncertainty for the players, their sobbing parents and full-blown emotional toll which provided the most heartbreak over that dramatic period.
As a young footy executive, it consumed almost every waking moment and conversation for Campbell outside of the family home.
Even chats with his friends in his downtime or trips to the local cafe were ultimately consumed by questions or complaints about the latest twist in the drugs saga.
He lost count of the sleepless nights.
Former Essendon Football Club CEO, Xavier Campbell. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui
And for almost that whole period, Campbell thought the players would be spared a lengthy playing ban.
That was until the video hook-up to a Swiss tribunal delivered the verdict he will never forget, or ever really expected.
In his first interview since his departure from the club in 2022, Campbell said even on the morning of the devastating Court of Arbitration for Sport verdict in January 2016 he thought the players would be cleared to play that season.
âThat blindsided us. We had prepared for all scenarios to a degree, but the suspension we never really expected to happen, or be as severe as it was,â Campbell said.
âI thought the players, if they werenât cleared and they were found guilty, that the ban would have been backdated and they would have been available for the season because of what they had already gone through.
When Dyson Heppell suggested that something could be brewing with the Bombers and a potential drugs issue, Stewart Crameri thought it was a joke.
âI have been out of football for a few years and that gives you the ability and time to reflect and more than anything there is an immense feeling of sorrow and disappointment for the players and the impact it all had.
âThere were so many difficult moments, but the one that sticks out the most was the meeting with the playersâ parents the day after they were suspended by WADA.
âThey were the toughest conversations I have ever had.
âI represent the club in this meeting and there were tears, just like there were tears two-and-a-half years earlier when they were cleared by the AFL anti-doping tribunal.
âSo the parents were emotional and the night we met with them was awful. It was an awful position for the parents and their sons to be put in.
âUltimately, the club had this matter where it couldnât confidently answer what (supplements) the players had taken.
âIt was a significant breach of governance from the clubâs perspective and that is where I felt it should have stopped.
âIt was the clubâs position. It was a lack of governance, a lack of compliance.
âBut the players should not have been sanctioned in my view. It was incredibly unfair.â
Almost 10 years on from the ban for the Essendon 34, life is much different these days for Campbell and his family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Campbell with his family in the Middle East. Xavier Campbellâs wife is Clare and their kids are Freddie (the oldest), Francesca and Vivienne (the baby).
The Campbell family, including three-month-old daughter Vivienne, Freddie, 11 and Francesca, 8, live in a lavish compound including basketball and tennis courts, four swimming pools, boutique spa and sauna, indoor soccer pitches and running track.
Recently, they returned to Melbourne and his home town of Echuca to see family and introduce their new bundle of joy, as well reconnect with some of his football friends.
In Riyadh it is big business, as Campbell advises the Public Investment Fund and their sports investment arm, SURJ, on major projects relating to the 2034 FIFA World Cup and Saudi Pro League and other entertainment projects.
The PIF is a sovereign wealth fund worth an eye-watering $1.5 trillion and currently the country is spending up big on sport such as international and domestic soccer, motorsport and broadcasting.
Six months into a three-year contract, Campbell is helping construct and centralise stadiums and other sport and entertainment venues which he said would be âbest in classâ.
While the companyâs enormous investment in soccer, in particular, has attracted criticism for sports washing, Campbell says it remains one of the most exciting work places in world sport.
And from a family perspective, the 16-hour days at Tullamarine at the peak of the supplement scandal have been replaced by a much more family-friendly work-life balance.
But the scale of his new work remains staggering for the former footy boss and Echuca man who is now at the forefront of the biggest sporting spend on the globe.
âThe country has got this infectious sort of energy about it and where it is going and it is becoming very relevant on a global stage,â he said.
âI understand there is criticism, but I can only speak from my experience and what I see is a country which is trying to be the best they can be, grow and make a positive impact.
âSo it is as an exciting place as anywhere to be part of and the work they are doing now towards the 2034 World Cup.
The 2034 World Cup will be held in Saudi Arabia. Picture: Getty Images
âThe ambition is to build an economy which is less reliant on oil and becomes a destination point for people.
âBut it is more time with the children, the compound life is incredible, the children love it and the cultural aspects are really interesting.
âFreddie, for example, is in a year with kids from 33 different countries.
âSo, Saudi is far more diverse and probably much younger than people would understand. âSeventy per cent of the population is under 35. Iâve seen it.
âAnd I am part of a work force which is close to 50-50 male-female and many of the senior people I have met are female, so it is far different to what many people may think.â
By the time he left Essendon, however, Campbell wanted a breather.
The Bombers had been consumed by another crisis of sorts when the team bombed in Ben Ruttenâs second year in charge after playing finals the season before.
After going 11-11 in 2021 and a 49-point loss to Western Bulldogs in the elimination final, the Bombers crashed with only six wins in 2022.
The Bombers were well beaten by the Dogs in their last finals appearance. Picture: Getty Images
The whole club then went into another extraordinary tailspin.
President Dave Barham spearheaded a board takeover which led to the one-day appointment of replacement CEO Andrew Thorburn, who was moved on due to concerns about his religious links.
Ultimately, Barham was unhappy with the clubâs on-field direction and development program under Rutten, and appointed new coach Brad Scott to help maximise the âyoung and exciting playing listâ and restore it as a âthriving football clubâ.
Campbell resigned out of solidarity with Rutten after conversations in the lead-up with his wife Clare.
An 84-point hammering from Port Adelaide at Marvel Stadium in Round 22 and a 66-point thrashing from Richmond at the MCG the next week was the final straw for Rutten.
âI was a believer in Ben, I was a believer in where we were going but the broader board didnât believe that, and that was fine,â Campbell said.
âIt didnât leave me much of a position. I had to resign, really.
âWe were still a very young team under Ben. I thought he did exceptionally well to get them playing finals in his first season.
Campbell left the Bombers alongside Rutten. Picture: Michael Klein
âIt didnât go quite as well as we would have liked but sometimes you have to take a couple of steps back to take some steps forward.
âI had been at Essendon for 14 years and was CEO for nine and it wasnât straight forward. The first four or five years were incredibly complex.
âThe supplements saga had so many layers to it; there was the stakeholder piece, it was emotional, it was deep, it was just very, very difficult, and took so many twists and turns â it was exhausting.
âThen we had obviously Covid, so by that point I probably had enough myself.â
The family headed to France as part of a welcome step change.
There, Campbell completed more study, the kids were enrolled in a bilingual school (Freddie learnt to speak near-fluent French) and collectively as a family they exhaled.
For Campbell, there had been conversations with former AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan about a senior job at the AFL (which he declined) and together the pair considered purchasing a stake in English Premier League club Leeds United.
Campbell after his final match as Essendon CEO. Picture: Michael Klein
âIt (purchase) didnât happen but it started an interest in the global piece and spending more time over there in London and in the Middle East was probably a catalyst for what Iâm doing now,â he said.
But the drugs crisis had devastating aftershocks for the club including about a $30 million in costs as well as significant list and salary cap implications.
The club was stripped of top draft picks (three first and second-rounders), booted from the 2013 finals series under former coach James Hird and the club paid full-price to keep star players amid the devastating fallout to the 2016 suspensions.
A player exodus would have been even more disastrous at the time, Campbell said, for a club which has not won a final in two decades.
âThere were significant offers for many of our players, but can you imagine what would have happened if we were trading out players at that time?
âIt would have broken the heart of the football club.
âSo I donât regret the strategy of retaining the players because it was what we should have done and had to do, and they had talent.
âAnd how we did keep the playing group together is something I am proud of and it wasnât just me. It was incredible really.
âBut there were so many people who played a role in doing that.
âJobeâs (Watson) leadership, Dysonâs (Heppell) leadership, Paul Little, Paul Brasher, Lindsay Tanner, all those people played an enormous leadership role.
Stewart Crameri has sung the praises of Jobe Watson and his response to the Essendon drugs saga and losing his Brownlow.
âThe fans kept coming, they kept supporting, the fans, the membership kept growing, and all those sorts of things.
âWhen we beat Melbourne in 2016 too, it was a bittersweet moment because you were so proud that the group could do that (with top-up players).
âThere were so many things when you think back and say, âHow did we actually get through it?â
âOne thing I think that hurt during that whole period was the sheer length of time that the saga went for and a lot of people got frustrated with that.
âIt hurt the club and the players and people will say it was selfish we kept pushing.
âBut had other people been put in that position with the belief their players were innocent Iâm not sure how they could have argued any other position that we were arguing.â
But the scars remain.
And Campbell learned from it.
âAt times throughout my tenure, particularly early on, I worried too much about what people thought about me, or I spent too much time on things I couldnât control,â he said.
âThe job was difficult in the first four or five years. I felt like I was doing two jobs. CEO of the club and CEO of a crisis. I am not sure I got that balance right.
It was a tumultuous time for Campbell and Essendon. Picture: Getty Images
âThere were nights I didnât sleep at all as I just worked through the rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts about the next day. Iâm sure that was the case for others.â
This year Essendon is in the midst of a full-on rebuild as part of an injury-riddled reset under third-year coach Brad Scott.
There remain different opinions on whether the club is considerably underperformed (six wins this year) or it was the clean slate and investment in draft talent the club always required.
âI am not as close to it, and thereâs a lot of injuries which makes progression in terms of wins and losses very difficult,â he said.
âBut they have an experienced football CEO in Craig Vozzo and an experienced coach in Brad Scott, so you think they have the pieces, and (board members) Andrew Welsh and Dean Solomon are really good people.â
Asked if he believed Essendonâs direction will lead it to some long-awaited team success, he said âI hope so. Letâs seeâ.
âI love the club. I still want it to do well for a whole range of reasons because I still speak to a lot of people who are connected to the club and work there now,â he said.
âI still stay in contact with (former presidents) Paul Little (2013-15), Lindsay Tanner (2015-2020) and Paul Brasher (2020-2022).
âPaul Little was so strong and ruthless and the leader the club needed at that point in time.
âPaul Brasher was just an incredibly thoughtful human, while Lindsay was just unbelievably articulate with a thick skin and had no time for external noise.â
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Agree with his view re the saga being a governance issue which shouldâve stopped there.
Doesnât appear that being such a close mate with gil helped us at all
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Former AFL player reportedly tested positive to performance enhancing substance
Shiel to face tribunal in unique case | 00:48
Fox Footy from Fox Sports
August 12th, 2025 5:07 pm
A former AFL player reportedly tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance while playing in a lower-level competition following the end of his professional career.
The player, who finished his AFL career in 2023, has this year been placed under provisional suspension, reports The Ageâs Jake Niall.
Itâs understood the player tested positive while playing in a lower-level league last year, and despite having put an end to his professional career by that stage, could still be tested under the AFLâs Anti-Doping Code within 12 months of his AFL exit.
The report elected not to name the player in question.
The playerâs test was undertaken by Sport Integrity Australia; the governing body, formerly known as ASADA, which aims to preserve fairness at all levels of Australian sport.
Under the AFL Anti-Doping Code, if a player intentionally takes a prohibited substance to gain an advantage, they are subject to a maximum ban of four years. Local leagues, including the state competitions, are held to the same rules.
In late 2024, ex-Melbourne player Joel Smith was suspended four years by SIA for cocaine use and trafficking after turning up a positive result on a matchday test in August 2023.
Fyfe: âItâs been an incredible journey!â | 02:21
But unlike Smithâs circumstances, Niall reports the unnamed player in questionâs alleged breach was âfor a substance that is banned both in and outside the competitionâ.
He noted also that positive results for performance-enhancing drugs were âextremely rareâ in the AFL, as cases of positive tests for illicit substances are more common.
Then-Collingwood players Josh Thomas and Lachie Keeffe copped two-year bans in 2015 after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
The âEssendon 34â that were banned for the 2016 season after four yearsâ worth of investigation did not return positive tests for a banned substance but rather were suspended on circumstantial evidence they were administered with a banned substance.
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The speculation online seems to be that itâs likely the best mate of an Essendon player. Iâll leave it there.
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He was delisted at the end of 2022. Article says the player finished up in 2023.
Why is SIA testing in lower level competitions. What a waste of resources.
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No, he was delisted at the end of 2023. He just didnât play any senior games that year.
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Someone went beastmode I heard?
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Iâm shocked - looked so natural.
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