Dear Paul

Many thanks for paying me the courtesy of responding to my email. As I have spent over 12,000 hours and written over a million words trying to salvage the mental state of 34 Essendon players, support staff and their families, I hope that you will extend the courtesy and read, what will be a lengthy and torturous task, the following:

Paul Little email:

“All of the legal advice the Essendon Football Club and I took during the performance enhancing supplements saga suggested that it was then and would be in the future, almost impossible to conclusively reverse the findings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“Whilst I am flattered that you regard me as a “big hitter”, I don’t agree that I have a “great need to clear my conscience”.

“For the record, I see James Hird regularly and he continues to be in good health and I will pass on your best wishes when I see him later today.

“Bruce, I suggest it is time for all of us connected to the Club to look forward and pass up the temptation to reinvestigate this damaging period of our recent history.”

Item (Little) 1: “All of the legal advice the Essendon Football Club and I took during the performance enhancing supplements saga suggested that it was then and would be in the future, almost impossible to conclusively reverse the findings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”

My Comment

1. I have spoken to Stephen Dank for 75 plus hours in over 150 phone calls. Dank’s name was mentioned 1189 times in the Interim Report. I have discussed all 1189 mentions with him. Although he has given a plausible response to each question about Thymosin Beta-4, I have no idea whether the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4. I do know there is not a skerrick of evidence that Dank took possession of Thymosin Beta-4. It doesn’t matter what Dank told the players what he gave them or what he said in interviews he gave them. If there is no evidence that he took possession of Thymosin Beta-4, he couldn’t have administered it to the players. 
   
   
2. You and the whole world believe Dank is a liar. You and ASADA, WADA, the media and CAS can’t use the comments that you like to support your case against him and the players and reject his comments that don’t suit you. However, there are other issues xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx
   
   
3. “Almost impossible” means there is still life, still a chance. It was almost impossible my badly shot-up dad could survive one hour without evacuation and medical help at El Alamein while still under fire, but his anti-tank gun crew risked almost certain death by defying my dad’s orders by staying with him because dad was still breathing.
   
   
4. Given your arguably xxxxxx behaviour, which has had a devastating, life-long effect on many lives, you should be trying to make amends until your last breath. You have skin in the game. The only skin I have in the game is living up to my father’s expectation that I would fight against injustice, and fight for the little guy, the same way he did in WWII and for the rest of his life.
   
   
5. Reversing the CAS decision is the ultimate objective, but if that cannot be achieved, exposing the Court of Arbitration for Sport panel as biased, inept and arguably corrupt will help change a lot of people’s negative attitude to the players and will undoubtedly bring some comfort to the players and their families and friends. 
   
   
6. I suspect it would even bring some comfort to the Essendon members who are continually taunted that they support a club that cheats. Cheating may be accepted in the business world and by a very senior AFL official who should be sacked but having watched the country’s response to Steve Smith and David Warner, it is not accepted in the sporting world.
   
   
7. I accepted from day one that there is no legal forum to change the decision. However, if the CAS panel, which includes the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW, is publicly humiliated and exposed as biased, inept and according to my dictionary corrupt, I believe the media and government could put enough pressure on the president of CAS, the xxxxxxx John Coates, and his organisation, for the CAS to initiate reversing the decision. The QC advising me has suggested the following solution:
   
   i. You meet with the QC, who incidentally was a former judge, at my home on the Gold Coast and we take you through the irrefutable evidence that the CAS panel was biased and inept.
   
   ii. You then, at your expense, brief a prominent QC in Melbourne to give you written advice on the evidence collected by me (and endorsed by my QC). I have quoted former High Court Chief Justice Robert French on numerous occasions. He is obsessed with procedural fairness, so, he may be worth approaching. 
   
   iii. I sent former High Court Judge Michael Kirby my 145-page CAS Decision dissection and he said that he would have handled the case pro bono but he no longer has a licence (insurance). Former High Court Judge Ian Callinan may also be an option. I also approached Banking Royal Commissioner Kenneth Hayne to represent me.
   
   iv. If you obtain the written advice my QC and I expect, we should send it to the media and CAS and sporting officials throughout the world. You could be a silent participant or drive the whole issue. I do not care if my name is never mentioned.
   
   v. I have sent Alan Jones every word that I have written, and he responds three or four times every week. I shall forward you under separate cover a link for you to listen to the half hour television show he and Graham Richardson did on their TV programme on 8 December 2015. {Insert: Jones and I have exchanged 842 emails on the subject.}
   
   vi. Alan agreed that there was still high public interest in the story and said that he would devote another programme to the issue. Alan is very close friends with world athletic President Lord Sebastian Coe, and he will send the QC’s written advice to Sebastian.
   
   vii. I have never asked anyone for money or asked anyone to spend money on my behalf, so, I do not feel embarrassed asking you to spend a few bobs from your fob pocket because it can be justified as necessary image building for you.
   
   – To ensure that I was better researched than anyone, I paid $1400 for Essendon anti-doping consultant Martin Hardie (a law lecturer) to fly from Geelong in 2014 to my place to brief me for a week on the ASADA Act and the WADA Code. I used up a lot of favours by organising golf lessons for Martin from the former number 5 world ranked woman professional.
   
   – I paid the Court fees for Jackson Taylor’s first case against the AFL.
   
   – I have paid for legal advice, thousands of dollars of photocopying and secretarial services
   
   – To protect my source, I retyped the 434-page ASADA interim report with one finger on one hand. It took me, twenty-six 20-hour days to retype it. I then burnt the original to protect my source, whose name was on every page.
   
   
8. Whoever advised the club to fight the AFL/ASADA in Middleton’s Federal Court was an idiot on the Binet scale. Those, including James Hird and the Essendon board, who accepted the advice, were also idiots. It would have been a pyrrhic victory. The players wanted to be cleared of being administered a banned substance. They did not want to have the matter dropped on a technicality. I made this position very clear before the 11 August 2014 hearing, not after it.
   
   
9. You won the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal case because of David Grace QC and because Stewart Crameri and Brent Prismall were honourable men and wouldn’t be intimidated by their legal team.
   
   
10. A number of Essendon supporters have visited me because of reading my work. Inter alia, Mark Thompson and Stewart Crameri’s mother Amanda both came to visit me at my home on the Gold Coast. I subsequently had scores and scores of phone calls from them. As an aside, the QC I refer who is now advising me pro bono phoned out of the blue and asked if he could meet me after reading my work. I also had visits from four J34 people.
    
    
11. Amanda Crameri phoned me in a panic one night in January 2015. It was one or two nights after ASADA/AFL had finished prosecuting its case in the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal and before David Grace had commenced his defence. Amanda was almost hysterical. She informed me that a member of the Crameri/Prismall legal team, Peter Gordon’s son, Patrick, had phoned her hoping to convince her to persuade Stewart to plead guilty to being administered Thymosin Beta-4 in return for a two-competition match suspension organised by Peter Gordon with Andrew Dillon. Patrick Gordon told her that the legal team believed they had no chance of winning the case. According to Amanda, Peter Gordon was pressuring Stewart and Brent to admit guilt. Amanda was apoplectic. 
    
    
12. Up until that point, I had refused James Hird’s requests to speak to me. We had exchanged 190 emails. However, I thought it would be catastrophic for the players and the club if two players lied and admitted guilt. I immediately phoned James and Tim Watson and explained the ramifications of what Amanda had told me. Amanda phoned the next night to tell me she had just received a call from Patrick Gordon who had explained that the call the previous night was off-the-record. Patrick was a bit late because I had already written about it.
    
    
13. Unfortunately, David Grace QC was prevented from handling the CAS case. I wrote to you and Xavier Campbell and urged you both to hire a Californian based lawyer, Howard Jacobs. My extensive research indicated he was the best anti-doping defence lawyer in the world. Sadly, neither of you replied. Instead, you used Hargreaves and the people working for Peter Gordon who didn’t believe that they could win in the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal. 

Item (Little) 2: “Whilst I am flattered that you regard me as a “big hitter”, I don’t agree that I have a “great need to clear my conscience”.

My Comment:

The only way to respond to this is to table the main events/issues and then substantiate why you should have a guilty conscience. I suspect that my sources (plural) have enabled me to know what happened in discussions and EFC board meetings better than some of those who attended such discussions and meetings:

January on or about 16 & 17, 2012: Head of the football department, Paul Hamilton and high-performance manager Dean Robinson spoke to CEO Ian Robson about Dr Reid’s conversation with Hamilton on or about 15 January 2012.

My Opinion: Robsondidn’t tell the truth in his ASADA interview. He clearly knew about the supplements programme.

February 2, 2012: Paul Hamilton, sent an email to all relevant staff that said everything to do with the supplements programme had to come across his desk.

My Opinion: Essendon had a matrix organisation structure and as James Hird was on a different branch of the organisation structure from the football department, he had no legal right to interfere with the supplement programme. 

As it transpires, on several occasions, Hird informed the football staff involved in the supplements programme that the substances had to be WADA compliant; Dr Reid had to approve their use; the players were free to refuse taking any substance; and every substance had to have a history of being harm-free. Hird fulfilled the responsibilities set out in his job description and fulfilled the responsibilities set out in the Victorian OH&S Act.

February 21, 2012: David Evans, James Hird, Stephen Dank and the owner of AOD-9604, David Kenley, met at Evans’s office to discuss Evans or the club investing in AOD-9604. 

My Opinion: Evans didn’t tell the truth in his ASADA interview. He clearly knew about the supplements programme.

April 2012: Invoices started arriving at the club for unbudgeted supplements. The debts didn’t appear in any of the [calendar] 2012 monthly financial reports. 

My Opinion: Paul Hamilton could not have sat on the invoices for eight months. I know the accounts receivable clerk was being hassled for payment. It is incomprehensible that she didn’t inform her boss. Therefore, someone higher up the ladder must have sat on them. I am aware that at the 7 February 2013 board meeting, Robson was forced to empty the contents of a folder that contained supplement invoices. Robson clearly knew of the supplementation programme before 1 February 2013. Some board members became aware of the debts for the first time. 

April 24, 2012: AFL’s General Manager, Football Operations, Adrian Anderson sent an email to Essendon FC titled ‘Leading Approach to Sports Medicine & Sports Science in AFL’:

“As a follow up to discussion with club coaches, CEOs, football managers, medical officers, physiotherapists and sport science staff in recent months, attached is a discussion paper as promised summarising the issues raised regarding medical decision making and optimal medical structures for AFL football. The document has been produced to provide a starting point for further discussions between the three groups (medical Officers, physiotherapists & sports science staff) about optimal working relationships, and also to assist individual clubs in completing the exercise of looking at their own internal systems and structures. If you have any questions, please let me know. Kind regards Adrian”

The discussion paper that was attached to the email, identified a range of ‘issues’ and ‘possible consequences’ that had arisen under the existing medical arrangements within AFL clubs.

Issues

• Influence of sport science and search for the extra “edge” has grown in recent years which has some positive and potential negative implications
  
  
• Recent AFLMOA survey of club doctors (14 clubs responded):
  
  
  • 7/14 said non-medically qualified personnel had exerted undue influence on medical decision making on one or more occasions in the previous 12 months
    
    
  • 6/14 said this had adversely affected medical decisions on one or more occasions
    
    
  • 5/14 said this had decreased satisfaction with their role
    
    
  • Shortage of suitably qualified Medical Officers (MO) wishing to work in clubs and some current club MOs are close to retirement
    
    
  • Multiple cases of AFL doctors leaving clubs
    
    
  • Non-evidence based medical practices are growing which presents potential medical and injury risk ie, IV vitamins/supplements, specialist referrals without doctor input, radiation exposure and unhygienic facilities.

Possible Consequences 

• Potential risk to player welfare (emergency cover, mistreatment, etc
  
  
• Exposes club, club staff & coaches, and AFL to potential litigation
  
  
• Issue with MO recruitment and retention
  
  
• Potential MO insurance issues
  
  

On 24 April 2012, Robson forwarded Anderson’s email (including attachment) to Corcoran and Hamilton with the following instruction:

“… please see note below and attached from Adrian Anderson to the AFL FYI … please circulate within the Footy Department as appropriate … how are we going to co-ordinate our response to this developing issue within the industry?”

My Opinion: It is incomprehensible that Anderson’s correspondence was not tabled and addressed at the following board meeting. It is incomprehensible that Robson wouldn’t have discussed the issues raised in Anderson’s memo with staff.

July 2012: David Evans, Ian Robson, Dr Reid and Danny Corcoran met at James Hird’s home. Inter alia, Dr Reid asked Evans and Robson to terminate Dean Robinson. Hird and Corcoran supported Dr Reid’s request. Evans and Robson declined to terminate Robinson on the basis that the club couldn’t afford the payout.

My Opinion: Further proof that Evans and Robson knew of the supplements programme and further evidence they didn’t tell the ASADA investigators the truth.

August 2012 board meeting: Evans informed the board that Dr Reid, Hird and Corcoran wanted Robinson terminated. The board endorsed Evans and Robson’s decision not to terminate Robinson on the grounds the club couldn’t afford the payout. I was informed this discussion and decision was not recorded in the minutes. 

My Opinion: Surely, some board members remembered this discussion.

July/August 2012: Ian Robson chaired an internal review into soft tissue injuries.

August 21, 2012: Paul Hamilton delivered the key findings of Robson’s review into soft tissue injuries. The report was distributed to the board. Under the heading of ‘STOP’ were the following entries:

• [Stop] going for magic cures – Supplementation that is not medically based. Concerns with Tribulus and Creatine[and] IV injections. Players need to understand there is no easy solutions … We have also higher gastric upsets with intake of supplements
  
  
• [Stop] Injection mentality
  

My Opinion: As Robson headed the review, his claim to the ASADA investigators that he had ‘no specific knowledge of the supplementation program’ prior to 5 February 2013, wasn’t the truth.

My Opinion: The faceless members of the Essendon board, who all claimed that they knew nothing about the supplement programme, must have been suffering from amnesia.

August 21, 2012: ASADA/AFL Interim Report Page 96: “Dr De Morton’s concerns about the philosophy of the injections would soon be realised as an ‘injection mentality’ (289 Email from Paul Hamilton to Danny Corcoran and Ian Robson 21 August 2012 at 11.15am).”

August 22, 2012: ASADA/AFL Interim Report Page 97: Dr. De Morton’s concerns remained unresolved as of August 2012.  On 22 August 2012, Dr De Morton authored an email to Hamilton, Robson, Jones and Cc’d Dr Reid in which he stated:

‘The other issue that arises is does all the extra “therapies”/tests etc distract the club/players from the core issues of getting fitter and prepared to play AFL football, apart from breeding dependence on a “drug” (supplement) culture? Dr Reid and I need to take control back of these areas. I have discussed this document with Dr Reid prior to sending’. (296 Email Dr De Morton to PH, IR, MJ, & DR Reid 22.8.12 at 8.04am) 

Hamilton replied to Dr De Morton’s email approximately 22 minutes later stating:

‘Thank you very much for your email and for bringing these facts to our attention. In relation to the blood tests … Dr Reid had actually brought this up with me yesterday in discussion I had with him. I have asked Robinson to provide us with this information. I agree with your thoughts and sentiments and I’m sure this will be rectified as part of our analysis of the interviews’.

My Opinion: Robson clearly didn’t tell the ASADA investigators the truth about his knowledge of the supplementation programme. Switkowski was clearly incompetentin deciding that Robson knew nothing about the supplementation programme. Tanner clearly knows very little about what happened between 2012 and 2017.

Thursday January 31, 2013: The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) convinced Demetriou, McLachlan, Clothier and ASADA CEO Aurora Andruska that Essendon players had taken WADA banned substances.

My Opinion: Demetriou, McLachlan and Clothier were gullible sycophantic fools. The ACC only had information not evidence. Deputy chief executive of the ACC Paul Jevtovic arguably breached the secrecy provisions of the Crimes Act when he acknowledged that Essendon was the team being investigated by the ACC.

Friday February 1, 2013: Demetriou and McLachlan virtually convinced Evans and Robson that Essendon players had taken banned substances. After Dr Reid read Evans his 18 January 2012 Hamilton/Hird letter that night, Evans and Robson stupidly accepted unconditionally Demetriou’s claim that the players had taken banned substances.

My Opinion: Demetriou possibly breached the secrecy provisions of the Crimes Act when he told Evans about his briefing with the ACC.

Friday 1 February 2013: The AFL and ASADA agreed to conduct a joint investigation into thematter, which means Evans’s claim that he self-reported on 5 February was untrue. – an untruth retold by Demetriou, McLachlan, Ben McDevitt and half of Australia.

My Opinion: The matter, the players taking banned substances, involved several issues:

1. Would the club be able to field a team if all 46 players were found guilty of being administered a banned substance? Answer: NO.
   
   
2. If there were only eight matches a weekend instead of nine, would the AFL have to refund Fox and Channel 7 about $100 million? Answer: According to the top Fox executive, YES.
   
   
3. Who was/were the employer(s)? Answer: As the players, AFL Commission and Essendon board signed a tripartite employment agreement, that meant the AFL Commission and Essendon board were the employers.
   
   
4. Did the employers fulfil their responsibilities set out in the employment contract with the players? Answer: NO. They breached clauses 7.3 and 12 of the employment contract.
   
   
5. Did the employers (the AFL & EFC board) fulfil their responsibilities set out in the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act? Answer: NO. They breached clauses 21, 22, 23 and 35.
   
   
6. Which official was responsible for the supplement programme? Answer: Paul Hamilton in his capacity as head of the football department and in his capacity as a member of the executive of EFC.
   
   
7. Which Essendon officials/players failed to fulfil their responsibilities? Answer: The board for failing to provide a safe working environment. Paul Brasher for not completing an adequate Risk Assessment and mitigation programme; Paul Hamilton in his capacity as head of the football department;  Dean Robinson and Stephen Dank because they did not receive permission from Dr Reid to administer many of the substances; Ian Robson for not ensuring that the players complied with clause 7.4 of the AFL Anti-Doping Code; The Human Resources Manager for not tabling an OH&S report to Robson each month; The players for failing to comply with clause 7.4 of the AFL Anti-Doping Code. 
   
   
8. Which AFL officials failed to fulfil their responsibilities? Answer: Brett Clothier for failing to ever check that the Essendon players were complying with clause 7.4 of the AFL Anti-Doping Code; Demetriou and McLachlan for failing to follow-up their beliefs that the Essendon players were taking banned substances in 2012. The Human Resources Director; the OH&S manager; the AFL commissioners; Dr Harcourt; and probably Adrian Anderson.
   
   
9. Demetriou and McLachlan decided they needed to find a solution which would protect: the AFL Commission; the Essendon board; their nine matches a weekend; their TV revenue; the Essendon players; that would be accepted by the Gillard Government, the media and the public.
   
   
10. The solution was to exonerate the players by fraudulently using the unusable World Anti-Doping Code’s (WADC) no fault clause, and hold the support staff, which was code for coach James Hird, responsible. It was reasoned that Hird was a big enough scalp to satisfy the Gillard Government, the media, the 17 clubs and the public.

Saturday/Sunday February 1 & 2, 2013: Demetriou persuaded Evans to hire his crisis manager Liz Lukin as a crisis manager. According to the EFC records, Lukin was hired that weekend.

My Opinion: Liz Lukin was similar with xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx to control the whole process.

Monday February 4, 2013: Demetriou, McLachlan, Evans and Robson exchanged several calls.

My Opinion: Demetriou, McLachlan, Evans and Robson agreed on a solution that would satisfy points 9 and 10 above.

Tuesday February 5, 2013: At a meeting at AFL House, McLachlan told Hird that the ACC was about to deliver a report which proved the Essendon players had taken banned substances. McLachlan and Clothier told Hird that they knew which banned substances the players had taken. James Hird (page 51): “I said to Gill [McLachlan, AFL Deputy CEO] l, I said, “Gill, this is wrong. We haven’t taken performance enhancing drugs. If you’re worried about AOD-9604, I’ve seen a WADA approval. I’ve – I am almost certain I’ve seen it” and Brett said – “they’re not worried about AOD-9604.” I said, “What are you worried about?” and he wouldn’t tell me what it was, and I said to them, “I even have text messages on my phone of products that Steve has talked about.” 

My Opinion: This was arguably a breach of the secrecy provisions of Crimes Act, which carried a mandatory two-year custodial sentence.

Tuesday February 5, 2013: McLachlan told Hird that at the upcoming media conference that he (Hird) couldn’t deny that the players had taken banned substances because it wouldn’t be true. 

My Opinion: This was a low act by McLachlan because he was masquerading as Hird’s friend when it had already been decided that Hird was the scapegoat.

Tuesday February 5, 2013: Liz Lukin and David Evans bullied Hird and demanded that Hird tell the media that he took full responsibility for the substance programme. Hird refused on the grounds that he didn’t believe the players had taken banned substances and on the grounds that he was on a different branch of the Essendon organisation structure from where the programme was run. Lukin and Evans pressured Hird until he very reluctantly, and very stupidly, agreed to take responsibility.

Tuesday February 5, 2013: Hird told the media he took full responsibility for the substances programme.

My Opinion: Hird’s admission, driven by Lukin, Evans and McLachlan, enabled Demetriou, McLachlan and Evans to implement their solution to the problems created by their belief that the players had taken banned substances. The AFL commissioners and the Essendon board, including Paul Little, were off-the-hook, as were the Essendon players.

Tuesday February 5, 2013: While at AFL house, Ian Robson phoned Danny Corcoran at his Essendon office and told him to suspend Dean Robinson immediately because the ACC was about to hold a media conference in which it would allege that the Essendon players had taken banned substances.

My Opinion: This was irrefutable proof that McLachlan had breached the Crimes Act by telling Evans, Hird and Robson confidential information.

Thursday February 7, 2013: Australian Crime Commission media conference

My Opinion: Demetriou was out of order by agreeing publicly with the unsubstantiated allegations made by ACC chief executive John Lawyer, Justice Minister Jason Clare and Sports Minister Kate Lundy. His comments implied that Essendon may have been infiltrated by organised crime. The Essendon board allowed the comments to go through unchallenged.

Saturday February 9, 2013: ASADA executives Aurora Andruska, Elen Perdikogiannis, Trevor Burgess and Paul Simonsson; AFL deputy CEO Gillon McLachlan and integrity manager Brett Clothier; Essendon chairman David Evans and Essendon CEO Ian Robson; and the Federal Labor government’s most senior bureaucrat responsible for sport Richard Eccles, met at ASADA’s headquarters in Canberra. During the meeting Eccles asked McLachlan: ‘What is it you are after?’ Andruska’s spiral notebook records McLachlan’s response: ‘Come to arrangement. Players found to be innocent. This is the outcome. Sanctions against Essendon. Held responsible. Hold individuals accountable.’ 

My QC’s Opinion, which was shared by former Labor Minister Graham Richardson and broadcaster Alan Jones on their Sky News programme 8 December 2015, was that this was a possible criminal conspiracy. Agreeing on the result of the AFL/ASADA investigation four days before the first witness was interviewed is no different from fixing the result of an AFL match or a cricket match. 

All attendees at the 9 February 2013 meeting, apart from Andruska, agreed with McLachlan’s demands. Andruska didn’t accept that the players were innocent through ‘no fault’. Only one person had been exonerated using this clause. A hockey player had been given a prohibited substance while being unconscious on the operating table during surgery. ASADA’s senior counsel John Marshall QC resigned because of the ‘illegal’ ASADA / AFL / Essendon agreement to grant the players a no-fault exoneration.

February 2013: The Essendon board endorsed the 9 February 2013 agreement made by Chairman David Evans, Ian Robson and Gillon McLachlan that the players would not be prosecuted; the club [and not the board] was responsible and would be sanctioned; and that individuals would be held accountable. 

My Opinion: The Essendon board, including Paul Little, was giving the AFL permission to impose whatever penalties it liked on the club and Hird irrespective of whether the AFL could conjure up a case or not. This was a breach of the board members’ fiduciary duties. It created an opportunity for the AFL to defraud the Essendon members of $2 million. It meant the board, was giving the AFL permission to do something that nearly destroyed James Hird’s life. 

The village idiot would have been bright enough to question the players being exonerated four days before the first witness was interviewed. Clearly, no one on the Essendon board was as bright as the village idiot because no one questioned the exoneration. Alternatively, the board was happy to have the authorities turn their backs on a possible 46 drug cheats. If the players had taken a banned substance, they should have been suspended.

My QC’s Opinion: This was a possible criminal conspiracy. As the first witness hadn’t even been interviewed at this stage, the participants in the 9 February meeting, and the Essendon board, were possibly acting corruptly in agreeing on the outcome. Evans agreed to sacrifice Hird and the club in return for the players and the Essendon board being exonerated. This created the opportunity for the August 2013 fraud to take place. The Essendon board was basically giving the AFL freedom to do what it liked to Hird and the club without being challenged. The board gave the AFL a free kick and three 50 metres for the one unproven offence.

February to July 2013: Demetriou continually implied in the media that Essendon and Hird were guilty

My QC’s Opinion: This was a possible breach of their right to procedural fairness. In normal circumstances it would have been incomprehensible for the Essendon board, through its solicitor, not to complain about Demetriou’s unacceptable behaviour. However, as the board had accepted the club and Hird were guilty, it allowed Demetriou a free reign.

February to July 2013: McLachlan continually briefed the proposed jury, the AFL Commissioners, on the evidence before the investigation was completed.

My QC’s Opinion: This was a possible suborning of decision makers and interfering with the process of justice.

March 11, 2013: David Evans told James Hird to tell the players that they wouldn’t be penalised. No player had been interviewed at this stage, which meant that it was impossible to know whether they had been administered a banned substance or not. 

My Opinion: Evans’s conversation with Hird was confirmation that the deal done on 9 February 2013 by McLachlan, ASADA, Gillard government, Evans and Robson, and approved by the Essendon board, was being enforced. All the previous mentioned persons were condoning breaching the WADC, and should have been investigated, and if appropriate, charged. 

March 5, 2013: Liz Lukin persuaded David Evans to hire Ziggy Switkowski to investigate Essendon’s governance.

Chip Le Grand’s Opinion: “Lukin argued that the club needed to be seen to be doing something. Evans was convinced that if Essendon addressed its own mistakes it will count in the club’s favour when its inevitable reckoning with the AFL arrived. Switkowski’s expertise isn’t in pharmacology. Rather, his task was to examine the extent to which management and governance failures contributed to the scandal. His full report, prepared for the Essendon board, was not made public. 

The published summary, with its colourful turn of phrase and damning findings, lay bare the organisational dysfunction at Essendon throughout the 2012 season and provides the most quoted line of the entire drug scandal: ‘a disturbing picture of pharmacologically experimental environment never adequately controlled or challenged or documented.’ 

The full report, written for the eyes of Essendon directors only, is even more vibrant in its language. It portrays Stephen Dank as knowledgeable and experienced in elite sport and his work habits as appalling. 

Dank’s boss Dean Robinson is cast as a well-intentioned, inept manager. Robinson’s boss Paul Hamilton is depicted as too weak to preserve proper lines of reporting. Ian Robson, the chief executive, is adept at the commercial side of the business but pays insufficient attention to the goings-on inside the football Department… 

The absence of testimony from anyone who worked in Essendon’s high-performance department denies Switkowski an important prospective and limits the depth of his report… In Switkowski’s view, Hird made serious errors. After spending six weeks at the club conducting the review, Switkowski is none the wiser about who is supposed to be Hird’s boss.”

My Opinion: Le Grand either was given a copy of the full Switkowski Report, or he was briefed on its contents by an Essendon board member who wasn’t David Evans. Clearly, Switkowski was incapable of reading Essendon’s organisation chart; Hird’s job description; and his employment contract.

March 2013: Demetriou: “You’d appreciate I’ve got briefings that are more advanced than what’s in the public domain.” 

My Opinion: This gave credence to his implication that Hird and Essendon were ‘guilty’. As Demetriou was to sit on the jury if charges were laid, it was unconscionable of him to receive the evidence at that stage, let alone decide on guilt.

April 9. 2013: The Australian: “Demetriou dismissed the suggestion that adverse findings would result in Essendon being docked points or deprived of a finals spot.”

April 11, 2013: In a meeting with Tony Nolan QC, James and Tania Hird, Liz Lukin demanded Hird stand aside as coach.

My Opinion: Lukin was acting on instructions from the board, which was part of the solution of holding Hird responsible.

April 13, 2013: AFL Commissioner Bill Kelty told James and Tania Hird that in a conference call, the AFL Commissioners decided that they wanted the Essendon board to stand Hird aside as coach.

My QC’s Opinion: As the commissioners were to be the jury if charges were to be laid, they should not have been briefed on the evidence. As Hird hadn’t even been interviewed by the ASADA investigators at that time it was a possible interfering during justice.

May 6, 2013: Under pressure from Liz Lukin, you (Paul Little) reneged on his agreement with James Hird to make changes to factual errors in Switkowski’s alleged summary report.

May 6, 2013: David Evans gave the AFL and ASADA a copy of the Switkowski Report.

My QC’s Opinion: As Switkowski’s investigation was conducted to identify governance problems at Essendon which needed to be addressed, it should never have been given to the AFL and ASADA to use against the club and Hird. Evans and the Essendon board, including Paul Little, possibly breached their fiduciary duties by giving the report to the AFL and ASADA to use against the club.

My Opinion: The Switkowski Report was created to give the AFL and ASADA ammunition to nail Hird. Switkowski’s summary report was a joke. He hardly referred to the Essendon organisation structure. The supplements programme was run by Paul Hamilton and his football department. Hird was on a different branch of the organisation structure from the football department. He had no legal right to interfere in the supplements programme. Switkowski stated that he had no pharmacology knowledge and then proceeded to say: “Dank was responsible for a “pharmacologically experimental environment”. 

As Switkowski didn’t interview Dank, Robinson or anyone else from the high-performance department, it was impossible for him to judge whether Dank and Robinson were using experimental substances. Switkowski didn’t even canvass the AFL’s responsibilities as an employer. Unbelievably, he didn’t mention the Victorian OH&S Act. By refusing Hird access to the full Switkowski Report the board was clearly hiding factual mistakes and unsubstantiated allegations.

Although an idiot on the Binet scale could identify many of the flaws in the Switkowski Report, the Essendon board allowed it to be used to destroy Hird’s life and to defraud the club of $2 million and be banned from the finals-series. Clearly, the Essendon board allowing the AFL to do what it liked was part of to the 9 February 2013 agreement.

June 2013: The AFL commissioners were briefed by McLachlan to the effect that the club officials at Essendon (Hird, Thompson, Corcoran and Dr Reid) were responsible for this ‘disgrace’ and will be held to account. The commissioners were told that Essendon would be prevented from playing in the finals-series. The AFL informed Richard Eccles of this decision. 

My Opinion: As AFL rules dictated that its commissioners act as the jury to hear any charges against Essendon, Hird, and any others, and then impose any penalties, they should not have been briefed on the evidence, nor told that Essendon and Hird were guilty, nor told what the penalties would be. The investigators, ASADA and the AFL were guilty of misconduct, incompetence, or both, and plainly denied Essendon and Hird procedural fairness.

My QC’s Opinion: This was a possible perverting of the course of justice by the AFL and a fiduciary breach by the Essendon board by accepting it.

June 4, 2013: ASADA Chief Executive Aurora Andruska and ASADA’s Elen Perdikogiannis spoke to Ms Glenys Beauchamp, deputy secretary Department of Sport. The handwritten notes taken by Ms Perdikogiannis record the following: “9am conversation with Ms Glenys Beauchamp [Secretary, Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport] with AA [Aurora Andruska]. Clear instructions from Min [Minister Lundy]. Min [Lundy] – her colleagues at her, accusing her of hampering chances of re-election – you need an outcome. Heightened levels of anxiety by AA [Aurora Andruska], and Elen gets emotional as well”. Big business sponsors, Australia’s reputation, etc. Min [Lundy] has put it on Glenys etcetera. 

Andruska said the minister was demanding no players be sacked. According to court documents Andruska’s notes of that 4 June meeting said: “Lundy: needs something – [a] deal with AFL; support staff sacked; points [taken] off [Essendon]; players off. [my emphasis]. 

My Opinion: It is difficult not to see this meeting as anything other than the government, the AFL and ASADA conspiring to find Essendon, Hird, and other support staff guilty and for them to be harshly penalised, while finding the players with no case to answer. 

My Opinion: Pre-determining to take points off Essendon had huge ramifications, which, as they played out, arguably amounted to the AFL being guilty of fraudulent behaviour. The five elements necessary to prove fraud appear to be in place. Taking points off Essendon meant Essendon couldn’t play in the finals-series. However, the AFL and Essendon continued to sell packages to Essendon members, which entitled them to preferential seating for Essendon finals matches. The AFL and Essendon were selling a product that didn’t exist because they had already decided Essendon wouldn’t play in the finals. 

June 25, 2013: At the AFL’s behest, David Evans asked James Hird in front of Dr Reid if he would agree to being suspended and Essendon being banned from the playing in the finals-series. During the discussion Evans acknowledged that Hird hadn’t done anything wrong. Evans spoke to Hird and Reid in his capacity as Chairman of the Essendon board, which means he was speaking on behalf of Paul Little and the rest of the board.

My QC’s Opinion: This was a possible interfering in the course of justice.

July 2013: WADA president, John Fahey, had the audacity to threaten to appeal any judgment his organisation believed was too light. 

My Opinion: This was an unconscionable comment by Fahey. He was implying the players were guilty before ASADA had even collected the evidence. And his comment was obviously made to pressure the AFL to impose harsh penalties. 

Saturday 27 July 2013: David Evans resigned as president and Paul Little replaced him. 

Chip Le Grand’s Opinion: Until now, the Essendon board, including Paul Little, had refused to take on the AFL. Little agreed with Hird that Essendon had been too trusting of the AFL, and it had to take on the AFL.

My Opinion: The Essendon board didn’t say a word about the AFL’s corrupt behaviour because the deal exonerated the board members and the players. The board was prepared to sacrifice Hird and was prepared to stop the club members watching their team play in the finals-series. 

Between Monday 29 July 2013 and August 7, 2013: Paul Little spent many days on the phone negotiating penalties with McLachlan. During this period Hird wanted to abandon negotiations with the AFL and head straight to the Supreme Court.

My Opinion: The only reason you (Little) accepted that the players were innocent and Essendon and Hird were guilty was because of the agreement reached by the AFL, ASADA and Evans (representing the Essendon board) on 9 February 2013. 

This agreement/deal was endorsed by the Essendon board, including you (Paul Little) in March 2013. You are not stupid. You knew enough about business to know that the Switkowski Report was a sham. You knew enough about governance to know Switkowski should have investigated the board and ascertained whether the board and AFL commissioners had breached the Victorian OH&S Act. You knew the AFL was running an illegal agenda and had denied the club and Hird et al procedural fairness.

August 2, 2013: ASADA tabled its Interim Report with the AFL. 

My Opinion: Unbeknown to the players and support staff, the investigators widened their investigation to include “cherry-picked” governance issues at Essendon. Although the investigators had no human resource qualifications, they not only investigated Essendon recruitment of Dean Robinson and Stephen Dank but included conclusions and recommendations, despite saying they wouldn’t. As Robinson and Dank had previously been employed by the AFL owned Gold Coast Suns, it is incomprehensible that the Essendon board, including Paul Little, didn’t challenge the AFL’s allegation that EFC should not have employed them. 

August 2, 2013: The AFL gave Essendon a severely redacted copy of the Interim Report. 

My Opinion: The Interim Report contained scores and scores of examples of ASADA and AFL corruption. ASADA/AFL changed evidence; fabricated evidence; omitted evidence; and testified in its own investigation. 

My Opinion: Even the village idiot could deduce that the AFL/ASADA had run a corrupted investigation and had denied Essendon, Hird, Corcoran, Thompson and Reid procedural fairness, and therefore, would not have been able to sustain any charges challenged by Essendon in the courts. In fact, the corruption was so bad the AFL could never have gone to court. Dr Reid and Dean Robinson settled cases proved the AFL couldn’t go to court.

Between 2 and 7 August 2013: McLachlan discussed with you (Paul Little) the penalties the AFL intended imposing on Essendon, Hird and Corcoran. Little claimed that McLachlan agreed that the players would be cleared. 

My Opinion: You (Paul Little) were incredibly ignorant in not knowing that McLachlan didn’t have the power to exonerate the players. It is incomprehensible that you were speaking to McLachlan without knowing the WADA (Anti-Doping Code) inside and out. As stated earlier, I paid Martin Hardie to brief me for a week on the WADA Code. It is incomprehensible that you weren’t as thorough. You had the players’, James, Mark and Danny’s, lives in your hand and you went in ill-prepared. And you claim your conscience is clear and claim you don’t have an obligation now to expose the CAS panel as incompetent and possibly corrupt. We certainly have different criteria as what defines a man.

My Opinion: It was impossible to trust McLachlan at this stage because you had not been given, and had not studied, a non-redacted copy of the Interim Report. You were a fool for speaking to McLachlan before receiving and studying an unredacted copy of the Interim Report.

August 7, 2013: McLachlan was interviewed by the Herald Sun’s Carly Crawford. McLachlan lied to Crawford when he said penalties hadn’t been discussed and wouldn’t be discussed until AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon had decided whether charges would be laid.

Wednesday evening August 7, 2013: Telephone discussion between McLachlan and you (Paul Little). McLachlan, much to your anger, retracted his promise that the players would definitely be cleared.

Thursday August 8, 2013: You (Paul Little), James Hird, Danny Corcoran and Mark Thompson met at Windy Hill. Youtold the group that you had had several discussions with McLachlan about the proposed AFL penalties and that “if we don’t cooperate, they have the power to stand [us] down”. You said that the AFL had made that veiled threat in earlier communications and this morning we said if the threat is not removed, we won’t even talk to them. 

You (Little) said that during discussions the AFL had said one thing then done the opposite. You said every single issue that you had agreed on with McLachlan when you had met with him the other night, has pretty much been reversed now in this note [letter of his demands] he has just given us. 

Hird said the AFL wanted the club to accept the heaviest suspension to a club and him to accept the heaviest suspension ever as an individual and Corcoran to accept a suspension. 

You (Little) said: “Hirdy’s determination to fight this is admirable in many ways, but I just think at some point in time if there is a deal to be cut to get all this behind us and get on with our lives, as much as we hate it and detest it and we believe we have been wronged and everything else, you as individuals and the club as a whole need to decide if that’s what you want to do… We have that stand-down provision, that is the gun at our head, and I don’t know how you fight that.”You doubted that the ASADA report would stand up [if we took it to court]. You said we have been found guilty, and we have got to prove our innocence. 

My Opinion: How you could enter discussions with McLachlan without having a written legal opinion on the stand-down provisions was an unforgivable dereliction of duty.

My Opinion: The club was being bullied and McLachlan’s threat to you that the AFL could stand-down the club was tantamount to blackmail. You should be commended for breaking ranks and challenging the AFL for a whole 10 days. Sadly the courage and your urge to fight against injustice evaporated when you told Hird, Corcoran and Thompson that “I just think at some point in time if there is a deal to be cut to get all this behind us and get on with our lives, as much as we hate it and detest it and we believe we have been wronged and everything else, you as individuals and the club as a whole need to decide if that’s what you want to do… We have that stand-down provision, that is the gun at our head, and I don’t know how you fight that.” 

My Opinion: You (Little) capitulating to the bullying and enabled the AFL to defraud Essendon of $2 million. It also contributed in some way to Hird’s suicide attempt. 

My Opinion: Inexplicably, you didn’t even know your legal position, and inexplicably you were negotiating with the AFL before you had seen, and understood, a non-redacted copy of the Interim Report. At this point charges hadn’t been laid. You were such a weak negotiator you hadn’t even been able to force the AFL to supply you with a non-redacted copy of the Interim Report.

My Opinion: You talked a big game to Hird, Corcoran and Thompson for 10 days but your interest was to get the players exonerated and then move on.

August 13, 2013: Parts of the Interim Report were cut and pasted into a 34-page charge sheet against Essendon, Hird, Corcoran and Reid.

August 21, 2013 (The Straight Dope): “The AFL published on its web page a 34-page document that accused Essendon, in devastating detail, of implementing a scientifically pioneering program in which footballers were injected with ‘exotic, mysterious and unfamiliar compounds’ without proper regard to their health in the World Anti-Doping Code. The contents went well beyond the particulars of any alleged offence. The material was drawn almost entirely from testimony and documents provided to ASADA and AFL investigators on the proviso of strict confidentiality.” Publishing the original draft had a tactical purpose: to weaken the club’s negotiating position by further damaging Essendon and Hird public’s standing. It was seen by Essendon as an act of retribution. Hird’s fury at the AFL was shared by you only for a brief time. 

You (Little) accused the AFL of releasing the charge sheet as reprisal for Garnham’s interview and for reprehensible conduct in failing to publicly clarify the status of AOD-9604. You described some of the allegations contained in the statement of grounds as without foundation. 

You revealed that the club and the league negotiated substantial changes to the statement grounds and accused the AFL of breaking its word by releasing the original charge sheet, a document ‘designed to do little more than score media headlines and ultimately intimidate us’. You said you had lost confidence in the AFL executive team of Andrew Demetrio and Gillon McLaughlin and called on commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick to personally intervene. 

Night of August 21, 2013: John Wylie stepped in to help you. You said: ‘It was a genuine offer of help from John to try and create a settlement package that I could sign off on, to all intents and purposes from the club and Hird’s point of view, and Fitzy could sign off on, to all intents and purposes from the AFL’s point of view.’ Chip Le Grand: “Through the course of negotiations, it is Wylie who persuades Little that Hird, as a senior coach, should accept a one-year ban for the good of the club. You fear that if the dispute bleeds into 2014 the club could lose premiership points with sponsors members and players to abandon Essendon. 

“From open conflict with the AFL, Little is drafted to the league’s principal clause: finding a speedy all-in resolution that avoids court action. Less than a month after taking control of the Essendon board from David Evans, Paul Little is prepared to pressure Hird in a way Evans never was. Over the next three days, the AFL chairman and Essendon President negotiate a proposed settlement to the drugs scandal through their mutual friend. Fitzpatrick and Little don’t negotiate directly. Instead, all lead discussions are channelled through Wylie.”

My Opinion: You should have known that the AFL couldn’t win in court and known that the AFL couldn’t stand the club down, yet, you were prepared to do something that would cause irreparable harm to Hird, Thompson, Corcoran and Reid’s live and the members hopes and dreams.

August 22, 2013: Hird’s lawyers lodged a 10-page writ in the Supreme Court. Inter alia, it accused the AFL of providing copies of ASADA’s Interim Report and other confidential information from the anti-doping investigation to journalists.

Friday August 23, 2013: Chip Le Grand: “The negotiations produce a settlement package that is acceptable to the AFL and Essendon and tempting Hird. A draft is sent from Wylie to Little and from Little to Hird. The terms are accompanied by a proposed form of words, email from Wylie to Little, to be adopted by the AFL and Essendon. The club and coach will concede that the supplements program was inadequately vetted and controlled and put at risk the health of the players. Hird will take responsibility senior coach the failures of governance and oversight the AFL will not find Hird guilty of bringing the game into disrepute, and Hird will accept a one-year suspension from coaching.” 

My Opinion: Thank heavens the Essendon board members and AFL commissioners weren’t xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx. They were the employers. According to the law, all 18 of them were responsible for providing a safe workplace for the players. They failed to do so. According to the OH&S Act, at least 30 people had more responsibility for providing a safe workplace than Hird. It is incomprehensible that all 18 commissioners and EFC board members were xxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxxx Hird to xxxxxxxxxx. I suspect some may feel like Lady Macbeth for the rest of their lives.

Sunday August 25, 2013: Four-hour meeting at McLachlan’s home attended by Hird, Steve Amendola and Andrew Dillon. McLachlan and Dillon told Hird that the decision is his alone, that the AFL already has an agreement with Essendon that the Bombers will be dealt with regardless of what the coach does. During the meeting Hird received an angry text message at 1.48pm from you (Little). “James AFL telling me you are trying to change the negotiated deal. I can’t help you any further James as Fitzpatrick has the shits and the ‘Total’ deal now has the wobbles up. I will have to cut you loose. I thought you and I had an agreement. I need to know this afternoon what your decision is. Paul.”

My Opinion: Who was not telling the truth? McLachlan and Dillon told Hird a deal had already been done and his issue was separate from the EFC deal. You (Little) said it wasn’t.

Sunday August 25, 2013: Meeting continued: While Hird and his lawyer were talking to the AFL officials, you were receiving updates from the AFL. 

My Opinion: It appears you were playing with team-AFL against Hird.

Sunday August 25, 2013: As soon as the meeting ended, Hird received a blistering phone call from you (Little), accusing him of backsliding on what they had agreed. Hird dug in. He told Little that his position hasn’t changed, that he just wants a fair hearing of the allegations against him. Shortly after the call another text message arrived at 3.13pm, this one more explicit than the last: “James AFL have said they will not do EFC deal unless we stand you down. Your decision not to take 12 months is going to impact the total club. This dispute is about to get very messy because you won’t take another six months, that he is a total of 12. If you really want to do what’s in the best interests of the club and its players take 12 months. Anything else will be selfish. Paul.”

My Opinion: What a low act. You were getting angry with Hird because he was allegedly vacillating about destroying his life to save the xxxxxx on the Essendon board who wanted him to take the blame for their apathy and mistakes and who wouldn’t fight for justice against a bunch of ccxxxxxxxx.

Sunday evening August 25, 2013: You called Hird at home and told him that Mike Fitzpatrick was adamant that Hird must either accept the 12-month suspension or be sacked as Essendon coach. You gave Hird a deadline of 9AM Monday, the morning of the commission meeting. “I just told him I couldn’t protect him anymore. You have got to do what is in the best interests of the club now, it is a package.

My Opinion: You knew Fitzpatrick was xxxxxxxxxxx you. You were weak. You contributed in some way to destroying Hird to save yourself and 34 players who you should have known couldn’t be saved by the AFL. You should have told him to get lost. Your capitulation contributed to the AFL to possibly defrauding Essendon members of $2 million. It arguably cost Essendon the chance of winning the flag. If you were not prepared to fight for right and stand up for justice, you should have got off the pot and given someone else a go.

Monday August 26, 2013: Hird visited you at your office in the morning. You were apologetic but were still batting for the AFL. 

My Opinion: When various threats made to strip the club of 2014 premiership points, dump it from the traditional Anzac Day match against Collingwood, and deregister the club altogether, you should have said justice is on our side we won’t bow to xxxxxxxxxxx. Wylie had convinced you that the best chance Hird must continue his career is to bury his grievances with the AFL and accept the penalty on offer. You wanted what the AFL wanted: an immediate resolution to the drugs scandal, irrespective of how many lives were destroyed.

Tuesday August 27, 2013: Chip Le Grand: “Second day of meeting at AFL House. Hird, Thompson, Corcoran, Reid and Essendon were charged with bringing the game into disrepute. The Essendon officials received notification of their charges on 13 August 2013. Their lawyers were not given a chance to question any of the witnesses or make submissions on behalf on their clients. There was no hearing of the case, no deliberations of the evidence by the AFL commission or anyone else. The entire two days has been about applying whatever leverage is necessary to get Essendon and its officials to accept a penalty and be done with it. Hird was resolute. He wouldn’t plead guilty to anything; he wouldn’t accept a year’s suspension. You told Hird he would be cut loose if he continued his court case. Under the terms of the settlement the AFL dropped the charge against each club official in exchange for them accepting a penalty. The charge against Essendon stayed. The club was found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute. Essendon was dumped from the finals-series, stripped of draft picks and fined $2 million. The AFL made a promise it couldn’t keep. ASADA wouldn’t pursue its case against the players.”

My Opinion: You pressured Hird to accept a deal based on a promise that you were too ignorant to know couldn’t be kept. You forgo the chance to win the flag based on a promise that you were too ignorant to know couldn’t be kept.

Paul, I could make many critical comments about how things were handled between September 2013 and when you resigned but I think the fore-mentioned comments prove my point that you should feel a little like Lady Macbeth and you should devote your power to exposing the corrupt CAS. If that means working with me, so, be it.

Item (Little 3): “For the record, I see James Hird regularly and he continues to be in good health and I will pass on your best wishes when I see him later today.

My Opinion: I am delighted that you are seeing James regularly. It is what he needs. I am sure it is therapeutic for both of you. But it doesn’t clean the slate. Evans dug the hole and threw James in. You and the Essendon board threw the sand in on top of James when you and the EFC board endorsed the 9 February 2013 ‘illegal’ deal. For the first ten days of your reign, you showed remorse and great courage when you lowered the rope to James. Sadly, after ten days your conscience went AWL and you capitulated to the AFL pressure, which helped destroyed James’s life forever. I asked you in a 10 November 2016 email to reach out to James because I believed he was about to commit suicide. He tried less than two months later. 

Item (Little) 4: “Bruce, I suggest it is time for all of us connected to the Club to look forward and pass up the temptation to reinvestigate this damaging period of our recent history.”

My Opinion: I don’t know your family situation. I do know if you or any club members have children, siblings, nephews, nieces etc, and one of them was wrongly convicted of a crime you would all fight to your last breath to overturn the convictions. You wouldn’t be telling them we have to move on and be grateful for your weekend visits from us to Her Majesty’s boarding house. The irony of your Neville Chamberlain position is that you probably admire the Israelis for refusing to negotiate with terrorists, kidnappers and hijackers!

In sport, we use the word great far too often, but there are instances when it can truly be applied. Greatness is a status that is earned by enduring success, that success obtained by rigidly adhering to a set of quality, world-class values agreed to by the many and carried out on their behalf by the few.

Once upon a time, and it seems like a fairy story these days written by Hans Christian Sheedy, if not Andersen, in comparison with the Grimm narrative that surrounds the Bombers now, Essendon was a great club.

Apply the above criteria now to the Essendon Football Club and you must agree with Matthew Lloyd: Essendon is no longer a great club. Mind you, I am not sure that it is appropriate for Lloyd to be firing the bullets. He, and past greats lose some of their greatness by not bashing the 2013 board for its craven behaviour and the current board for its failure to expose the Court of Arbitration for Sport as inept, biased and/or corrupt.

The Bombers’ current ‘values’ – my first oxymoron for the day – are decided by the few – a craven set of administrators and lackeys – and abhorred by the many, the players and the people most entitled to be aggrieved at Essendon, the supporters.

Feedback indicates that the supporters are ashamed of their club for capitulating to the AFL, and I have been told that deep down the players are resentful that the AFL and Essendon board have made no attempt to expose the Court of Arbitration for Sport panel as biased, inept and/or corrupt.

Every time another propagandist for the lies surrounding the ASADA saga speaks out, Fitzpatrick the latest, you can hear the cries from the supporters: “Why doesn’t the club come out and tell the truth?” “Why doesn’t the club admit to the deals done with the AFL to sacrifice Hird and why doesn’t the club expose the CAS as biased, inept and/or corrupt?”

The answers lie at the very heart of Essendon’s tragic tumble from greatness – the club that has won more premierships than any other, a national brand, an ornament in sport – to the divided rabble it is now.

In February 2013, the first craven set of Essendon administrators – led by David Evans and Ian Robson – sold the club’s soul and saved themselves by offering up James Hird in return for their pardon. 

Not since his brothers stripped Joseph of his coat and sold him into slavery has there been a betrayal like this.  In time, Joseph turned the tables on his brothers, something that must keep McLachlan, Fitzpatrick, Demetriou, Evans, Robson and you (Little) awake at night, for they will know that Hird is again a rising hero at Essendon, while they are increasingly recognised as those who betrayed the club’s values.

Deep in what is left of his own soul, Evans knows that, but he can never bring himself to admit it publicly, so, will go to his grave a broken man, no matter how often Caroline Wilson sticks up for him.

The current president, Lindsay Tanner, is also a man with a deeply tarnished soul. For Bill Kelty’s xxxxx to come out, as he did and say that he agrees with everything the AFL has done in recent times, is the most contemptuous betrayal of the Essendon players and the Essendon members.

No wonder the Essendon supporters are ashamed of their club when those who claim to represent them go against everything, they want their leaders to do. In the words of another Labor person, Paul Keating, Tanner is the unrepresentative swill. Not only is he unrepresentative, but he is also unelected [at the time of writing], rumoured to be a comfortable appointment at the AFL’s behest.

Evans, Paul Little and Tanner have behaved in a way that denies Essendon any right to call itself a great club. Great clubs don’t destroy the reputations – and the lives – of their heroes as Essendon has done with the 34 players, James Hird, Mark Thompson and Danny Corcoran.

The US Marines risk their lives to bring home the bodies of their dead comrades. The Essendon board offered Hird to save themselves.

The Essendon Football Club is no longer one of the greatest forces in the world of Australian football because its administrative leaders showed a complete lack of courage to fight for their comrades – Hird, Thompson et al – when the first shot rang out.

Evans put Demetriou and Fitzpatrick and his survival before Hird and Thompson.

Evans put Demetriou and Fitzpatrick and his board’s survival before the members and supporters. Tanner puts McLachlan and Goyder before the players and Hird and Thompson’s right to be exonerated. Tanner puts McLachlan and Goyder before the members and the supporters. When they see this, players know they are no longer playing for a great club. Subconsciously, it must affect them.

The state of the club can be directly attributed to the deceits that began in February 2013, and everything that has happened since.

Lindsay Tanner (and your) constant cry of move on proves you are on a different wavelength from the people he was not elected to represent.   Every member, even those in the all too complicit coteries, would dislike or hate the AFL and yet in the most sycophantic gesture of the decade, Tanner and you have alienated a huge segment of the Essendon supporter base by agreeing with everything the AFL has done in recent times. 

The silence of the coteries who have agreed to “move on” is another reason why Essendon can no longer be called a great club. That status won’t return until the sycophants at the top, with Tanner leading them out the front door, are gone, replaced by people of virtue, people who think that a “move on” might be something to try at the next ruck contest, not the cowardly motto that has reduced this once great clubs to a rabble. I bet Hawthorn supporters are happy Don Scott was at their club and not Lindsay Tanner and you.

To begin the long, arduous return to greatness Essendon needs many things. Inter alia, a chairman or woman of substance who will restore the club’s traditional values. 

Paul, you can redeem yourself and clear your conscience by helping me expose the biased, inept and corrupt CAS. Please let me know when you can meet with my QC and me.

Bruce Francis