“The handling and mismanagement on every level,including the AFL and ASADA,trying to deal with ASADA,trying to bully ASADA,they didn’t respond well to that. They became mortal enemies. People don’t know the whole story.”
Danny Corcoran,the former Essendon football-department chief,admits mistakes were made in 2012 and 2013 but says there is no proof players were administered illegal drugs.Credit:Pat Scala
The 34 players involved were cleared in March 2015 by the AFL anti-doping tribunal but,less than a year later,the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheldthe World Anti-Doping Association’s appeal,finding “to its comfortable satisfaction” that the players had been injected with the substance.
However,that is not a conclusive result and,as Corcoran maintains,no one has been able to confirm what the players were given.
The saga sent Hird and lead assistant Mark Thompson into such depression thatHird took an overdose of sleeping pills,while Thompson also hadwell-publicised personal issues.
Jobe Watson had to return his 2012 Brownlow Medal,this contributing to the human toll that resulted from the August 27,2013 findings by the AFL where Hird was suspended by the AFL for 12 months and Thompson was fined $30,000. The Bombers were fined $2 million and stripped of their first two draft picks for the 2013 draft and a second-round pick in 2014. Corcoran,for his part,remains bewildered as to why he was suspended for six months (two suspended) by the AFL.
“The whole thing unsettled so many players,families ... there is still no evidence of any performance-enhancing drug being taken,and a lot of players and a lot of careers have been ruined,” Corcoran said.
“It was never,ever found. I don’t talk about it much but the hardline (stance) of CAS – we can’t prove we didn’t but you can’t prove we did – where does that leave anyone in terms of sport and the whole doping scenario? Under the current rules,you are guilty.”
Asked what he feels the players were administered,Corcoran said:“Everything from vitamins to immune boosters,which was approved.”
This included the banned anti-obesity drug AOD-9604,which Watson admitted to having taken from Dank under the impression that it was legal.
Corcoran insists the Bombers should not have self-reported on February 5,2013,coming after weeks of speculation that the players had been administered illegal drugs.
The Bombers had even threatened to sueThe Age the night before should any insinuations have been made.
Neither the AFL nor Andrew Demetriou,the league’s chief executive at the time of the supplements saga,wished to comment on Monday night.
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