Essendon AFL Drug Saga

23. DENIAL OF PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS AND IMPROPER PRACTICES:

  1. The investigation was not conducted in accordance with the ASADA Act, and wilfully so. It was flawed and corrupted at every step of the way. Inter alia, the Act made no provision for ASADA to decide on a guilt finding (9 February 2013) before the first witness was interviewed (13 February 2013). Nor did the Act provide for another government agency (ACC) to declare the players guilty, which conditioned the public to expect a guilty finding from the ASADA/AFL joint investigation.

  2. Incomprehensively, the Australian Crime Commission made it impossible for ASADA and the AFL to run a fair investigation by stating Essendon players were guilty. Demetriou, who made a similar outrageous claim on 7 February 2013 acknowledged this, and the consequent flaws in the process.

  3. On 28 May 2014, the Herald Sun reported Demetriou stating:

    “In the normal course of events, ASADA would have conducted the investigation under the power and rules that they operate under and they would have interviewed players and other people involved, they would have done it on a confidential basis. They would have gone through their process and if they thought there was a case to answer they would have laid a charge and it would have been dealt with under the ASADA code. Unfortunately … it wasn’t done that way, it was done via a very public press conference where I like other chief executives of other major sports were in Canberra and put before the public and the world was told there was some very large issue – underworld infiltrating sport – and it impugned just about every athlete in this country and that was a very unfortunate way to commence that investigation. It damaged lots of very good sports, lots of very good people – I’m not saying that the issue wasn’t a real issue, but the methodology that devised it to be announced in that fashion was severely damaging.”

  4. In the above, Demetriou acknowledged:

    i. ASADA did not conduct the investigation under the power and rules that they operate under; the way they normally would (and are obliged to do – my comment);

    ii. It was not conducted on a confidential basis;

    iii. The media conference on 7 February 2013 “impugned just about every athlete in this country”;

    iv. “It damaged lots of very good sports, lots of very good people”;

    v. “The methodology that devised it to be announced in that fashion was severely damaging.”