During the 31 January 2013 Australian Crime Commission (ACC) hosted meeting, the AFL expressed its desire to “share” and “co-operate” with ASADA. There was a general discussion about an investigation. [Source: Andruska affidavit, Clause 6, exhibit AA-2].
On 1 February 2013, Brett Clothier had a telephone conference with ASADA chief executive Aurora Andruska, Elen Perdikogiannis (ASADA National Manager Legal and Support), Paul Simonsson (ASADA Director of Intelligence and Investigations and Richard Eccles (then serving Sports Minister, Kate Lundy as a deputy secretary within the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government Arts and Sport the federal government’s senior sports bureaucrat). The telephone conference was to discuss a strategy for the investigation. [Source: Andruska affidavit, Clause 11; exhibit AA-3].
Later that day, Friday, 1 February 2013, Demetriou and McLachlan told Essendon chairman David Evans and CEO Ian Robson that the ACC had proof that Essendon players had been administered WADA prohibited performance enhancing substances.
ASADA and the AFL launched a joint investigation the same day into illegal performance enhancing substances at Essendon.
This produced a major dilemma for both the AFL and the Essendon board. Someone had to be held responsible for the players taking banned substances. The possible guilty options were the AFL Commission and Essendon Board for failing to fulfil their statutory and contractual obligations to provide a safe workplace for the players; the players; the senior members of the football department or members of the coaching staff, who for some unknown reason were deemed not to be members of the football department.
If 45 players were suspended, Fox Sports and Channel Seven would only have been able to televise eight matches a week instead of nine. According to McLachlan’s erstwhile very close friend and neighbour, the former Fox Sports football chief, that would have meant the AFL would have been required to refund an estimated $100 million to its broadcasters.
The AFL Commission and the Essendon Board had a vested interest in exonerating each other, which meant that they had to bat on the same team against the football department, which ran the supplements programmes. However, as the football department didn’t include anyone of a high enough profile to satisfy the vultures in the media and supporters from other clubs, someone else had to be blamed.
According to former Essendon CEO Xavier Campbell, on either Saturday 2 February 2013 or Sunday 3 February, David Evans hired AFL consultant Elizabeth Lukin at the AFL’s insistence to control the case.
At a meeting with McLachlan and Brett Clothier on Tuesday 5 February 2013, McLachlan. Lukin and Evans demanded that James Hird accept full responsibility. Hird believed that the players had not been administered prohibited substances and initially refused. After badgering from McLachlan, bullying from Lukin and insistence from Evans, Hird foolishly capitulated and agreed to take full responsibility.
But that wasn’t enough for McLachlan. Although the battle lines between the AFL/ASADA/Essendon board on the one hand, and Hird on the other, had been drawn on 1 February when the AFL and ASADA decided to investigate Essendon. McLachlan created the impression that he was helping Hird and told him that at the upcoming media conference, he had to admit that the players had taken banned substances.
The big dilemma for the AFL and ASADA was how to create a case against Hird given he wasn’t even a member of the football department and given that the Victorian OH&S Act implied that about 30 people at the AFL and Essendon had more OH&S responsibilities than Hird. For example, nine AFL commissioners, Demetriou, McLachlan, Adrian Anderson, Clothier, the human resource director, the OH&S manager, the AFL chief medical officer Dr Peter Harcourt, nine Essendon board members, the human resources manager, the OH&S manager, the football manager, the high-performance manager and the two doctors.
ASADA solved the problem. In a major governance breach, an ASADA official corruptly changed Ian Robson’s evidence to the investigators. When asked to outline the reporting protocols at Essendon, Robson said “Stephen Dank reported to Dean Robinson and Robinson reported to Paul Hamilton.” The ASADA official corruptly added [and Hird] in square brackets. That created the false impression that not only was Hird responsible for Robinson, which he wasn’t, but that he had the legal power to interfere in the operation of the football department and the supplement programmes. Essendon’s unique matrix organisation structure was incomprehensively designed to ensure Hird had no such power or rights.