Dear Mr Brasher or is it Lady Macbeth,

I suspect you already know these things, but a little reminder just in case.

Our club has a great history, kicking off the VFL by playing in the first ever game, against Geelong, and, skilfully led by George Stuckey, we won.

From there many a great tradition of success has flowed and so many of the good and great of Australian rules football have played in the black and red, such that we have our very own Hall of Fame.

Although your decision means James Hird, Mark Thompson and Jobe Watson have been rubbed out forever, the Hall of Fame is still brightly decorated by names like John Coleman, Dick Reynolds, Tim (father of) Watson and Indigenous heroes like Michael Long and Gavin Wanganeen. 

If there is one thing that characterised these players and their many colleagues, it was their fearlessness and preparedness to bleed for the red sash.

They must all be horrified that their great club now holds the world record for most drug cheats of any sporting club in the world.

And equally horrified that although there is now overwhelming proof of the innocence of the 34 players corruptly found guilty, that their club doesn’t give a rats and will not even send a letter containing proof of that innocence to the Prime Minister.

At the AGM this week, you self-reported as the first president since Gerald Ford who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

At the same time, you admitted that you know that a lot of people are unhappy about your craven inaction.

You must think you are that other American president, Donald Trump, who steadfastly refuses to bow to the overwhelming evidence.

In that spirit, the following is not fake news.  It is irrefutable.

1. Stephen Dank never took possession of Thymosin Beta 4.
   
   
2. The players were never administered Thymosin Beta-4.
   
   
3. You and your fellow board members have been given irrefutable proof that ASADA, WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport corruptly changed evidence to secure a guilty verdict against OUR 34 players.
   
   
4. The AFL Commissioners and Essendon board still have responsibilities for the mental and physical health of the 34 players and support staff.
   
   
5. Paul Brasher will be known as the president who condemned the players to be known as drug cheats for the rest of their lives.
   
   

Paul, this also is not fake news: The players were the victims of the greatest injustice in Australian sporting history. The players were, and continue to be, the victims of unparalleled treachery by their own board. As Brendon Goddard pointed out a couple of weeks ago, many of the players are still suffering and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives.

And here is another fact: It’s incomprehensible that the players would not like the guilty findings over-turned despite your assertions to the contrary. I cannot accept that if relatives of yours were wrongly convicted of a crime you would not fight to your last breath to clear them.

Your answer at the AGM was as fake as it was rehearsed. In case you have forgotten the lines Xavier wrote for you, here is how it went.

Question at AGM: “What is the board continuing to do to clear our club and players’ names regarding the on-going ASADA saga following the affidavit by Stephen Dank recently?”

Your response: “Well, Julian, members have heard me say before that our absolute focus is on winning games of football and putting this club in the best possible position to have on-field success and not to have anything get in the way of doing that. We believe to revisit the ASADA decision to get involved in all of that again would be a distraction, a distraction from our attempts to be successful on field and it is something we do not intend to do. I know there will be people out there who won’t be happy about that. All I can say to you is I spoke to a lot of members. I have spoken to many of the players, present and past who have been involved, and the overwhelming majority agree with what I have just said. We will not be continuing. We will not be going back into, to the past. We will be focussing purely on the future.”

Paul, surely, you’re better than that other footballing president, Gerald Ford, and you are capable of doing two things at the same time – providing the environment in which our current team can win, and clearing the names of those egregiously found guilty of a crime they didn’t commit.

All, as a fully paid-up member, I am asking you to do is to submit a document to the Prime Minister, World Anti-Doping Authority, CAS (through president John Coates) and Sport Integrity Australia, containing irrefutable proof that the players were the victims of unparalleled corrupt behaviour by ASADA, WADA and the CAS.

I shall prepare the document and pay for the stamps and letter head. All you have to do is sign the letters, with no onus on you to chew gum at the same time.

As hard as I try, and I played a fair bit of team sport myself while administrators ran their own agendas around us, I cannot image how signing these letters will distract the team from winning matches. You could give us a video address explaining how you signing a letter could distract our full forward in the first game!

The players, past and present, do not even need to know that the letters have been sent, even though they are entitled to believe the current guardians of theirs and their club’s honour would be doing everything they humanly could to protect it.

Instead, the players know they are led by a craven administration, one for whom playing their heart out is too often not worth the effort.

If you were, as you say, about winning games, you would restore in the players, past and present, their trust in our club’s administration.

There is afield among the people whom you admitted last Tuesday will be upset by your lack of courage, a cri de Coeur: Essendon will never win another premiership until Jobe has his Brownlow back and he, James and Mark become eligible for the Hall of Fame. As we speak, your inaction means they will be in the Hall of Shame forever.

Last season’s performances mount even further proof of this to be as true as any of the facts I’ve listed above.

Paul, screw your courage to the sticking place and we will not fail.

And 34 players, a couple of champion players turned coaches, and a huge mass of the Essendon fraternity will hail you as a hero, one worthy of his own place in the Essendon Hall of Fame.

If you do not, you will be like Lady Macbeth trying to wash the blood off your hands forever.

Bruce Francis