“Management and mismanagement at all levels, including the AFL and ASADA, trying to deal with ASADA, trying to intimidate ASADA, did not respond well to this. They became deadly enemies. People don’t know everything. the history”.
Danny Corcoran, the former head of Esendon’s football department, admits mistakes were made in 2012 and 2013, but says there is no evidence that players have administered illegal drugs. Credit: Pat Scala
The 34 players involved were cleared in March 2015 by the AFL Anti-Doping Court, but less than a year later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) accepted the appeal of the World Anti-Doping Association. , finding “to their comfortable satisfaction” that the players had been injected with the substance.
However, this is not a conclusive result and, as Corcoran argues, no one has been able to confirm what was given to the players.
The saga sent Hird and assistant principal Mark Thompson into such a depression that Hird finally tried to take his own life, while Thompson also had well-publicized personal problems.
Jobe Watson had to return his 2012 Brownlow Medal, which contributed to the human toll that resulted from the August 27, 2013 AFL findings, where Hird was suspended by the AFL for 12 years. months and Thompson was fined $ 30,000. Firefighters were fined $ 2 million and withdrew from the first two draft picks in 2013 and one in the second round in 2014. Corcoran, meanwhile, remains baffled as to why he was suspended for six months (two suspended) by firefighters. AFL.
“All of this has worried so many players, families … there is still no evidence that any performance-enhancing drugs have been taken, and many players and many careers have been ruined,” Corcoran said.
“It simply came to our notice then. I don’t talk about it much, but the hard line (posture) of the CAS – we can’t prove that we didn’t, but you can’t prove that we did – where it leaves that to someone in terms of sports and everything doping scenario? Under the current rules, you are guilty. “
When asked what he thinks were given to the players, Corcoran said, “Everything from vitamins to immune boosters was approved.”
This included the banned anti-obesity drug AOD-9604, which Watson admitted to taking from Dank on the impression that it was legal.
Corcoran insists the Fire Department should not have reported itself on February 5, 2013, after weeks of speculation that the players had been given illegal drugs.
Firefighters had even threatened to sue The Age the night before if any insinuations had been made.
Neither the AFL nor Andrew Demetriou, the league’s chief executive at the time of the supplement saga, declined to comment Monday night.
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