Peter Gordon explores Swiss appeal and injunction on suspension

[Beerfish]

It's hard for me to fathom that you can have the onerous responsibility to do what ASADA says when they say it, without recognising that not doing what they say might come with consequences.

It's hard for me to fathom that players still go out on the turps and get into all sorts of mischief too but there you go.

 

[Beerfish]

I think as they realised they were in too deep they moved from ignorance towards conscience deception (through admission).

Do you mean 'conscious deception (through omission)' by any chance?

 

[Suma Magic]

Do you mean 'conscious deception (through omission)' by any chance?

Haha yeah.

Although perhaps they were also deceiving themselves...

 

[Just interested]

oh please. You merely provide reference to the unesco convention then jump to the conclusion that would naturally entail a hugely punitive responses from any government now and into perpetuity?!

And you accuse me of peddling fallacies?

I am not saying definitively one way or another. The government may respond like you think. They may well not, too. As I've previously stated, it would require spending political capital one way or another, whereas you have this simplistic view that governments would launch themselves into potentially bruising fights on the basis of an international treaty.

Now speaking of international treaties, please can you enlighten me as to your interpretation of the similiarly supposedly binding treaty that Australia is a signatory to, the Refugee Convention. Yeah, that seems to be a REAL iron binding on the government doesn't it... The fact is the government can and act as it pleases despite being a signatory to that supposedly binding treaty.

I've just stated that there's no proof a government now or in the future would sanction the afl for leaving wada and your response is that signing a treaty 10 years ago is that proof?? Er... what was that about fallacies again?

What your treaty comparison ignores are the local constituencies. The gubmint can ignore treaties, like the Refugee Convention, because refugees don't have a local constituency.

But, sports other than the AFL certainly do have local constituencies, and very powerful ones. If you reckon the other sports in Oz wouldn't seek to capitalise on the AFL bailing from WADA, then I think you're underestimating just how much the other sports would like to see the AFL get taken down a peg, or two (and get their hands on the AFL's gubmint funding, for instance).

The AFL would certainly be taking exceptionalism to new heights, should they bail, given over 600 sports, and oddles of team sports, or athletes that go in and out of teams for seasons or events, across 180 countries, reckon signing up to abide by the WADA Code is way better than any alternative.

Even the 4 big Yanqui sports, those privately owned ones, are getting closer and closer to WADA, mainly because they're finding it difficult to run their own anti-doping show with great success.

"Major and minor league baseball players missed more than 25,000 games from 2007 through 2014 while suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. That was after the era of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. The figure is bigger than the number of games played by all 30 U.S. Major League Baseball teams over five seasons. It stands as evidence of the persistence of drug use in baseball, as in other sports, in the face of efforts to clean it up."

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/ ... s-drug-war

 

[Lance Uppercut]

I don't think there is the same political will for this subject

there may not be, although my argument is exactly that - if the AFL did pull out there may well not be the political will to go hammer and tongs after them.

It does prove, however, how useless an example of proof a mere treaty is

 

[Lance Uppercut]

What your treaty comparison ignores are the local constituencies. The gubmint can ignore treaties, like the Refugee Convention, because refugees don't have a local constituency.

But, sports other than the AFL certainly do have local constituencies, and very powerful ones. If you reckon the other sports in Oz wouldn't seek to capitalise on the AFL bailing from WADA, then I think you're underestimating just how much the other sports would like to see the AFL get taken down a peg, or two (and get their hands on the AFL's gubmint funding, for instance).

The AFL would certainly be taking exceptionalism to new heights, should they bail, given over 600 sports, and oddles of team sports, or athletes that go in and out of teams for seasons or events, across 180 countries, reckon signing up to abide by the WADA Code is way better than any alternative.

Even the 4 big Yanqui sports, those privately owned ones, are getting closer and closer to WADA, mainly because they're finding it difficult to run their own anti-doping show with great success.

"Major and minor league baseball players missed more than 25,000 games from 2007 through 2014 while suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. That was after the era of Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. The figure is bigger than the number of games played by all 30 U.S. Major League Baseball teams over five seasons. It stands as evidence of the persistence of drug use in baseball, as in other sports, in the face of efforts to clean it up."

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/ ... s-drug-war

I don't disagree with any of that (although I'd point out that the afl are themselves a major constituency, being the largest and most powerful sporting code in the country, and I don't really see any evidence to suggest other sports even combined would outweigh their impact). What I do dispute is merely the unsupported assertion that the government would absolutely penalise the code. They may. That's about all that can be said.

As an aside, and not referring to you here, it is interesting how many people take such exception at merely being asked to examine and recognise when they are making absolute statements based on implicit unsupported assumptions

 

[Baltimore Jack]

there may not be, although my argument is exactly that - if the AFL did pull out there may well not be the political will to go hammer and tongs after them.

It does prove, however, how useless an example of proof a mere treaty is

The (what I thought was obvious) point was, if the Government of the day wants to enforce an International Agreement the Courts have shown they will support them.
Now I fully understand that kind of rationale doesn't assist you in your world but to many who have the power to think about how a particular Government might deal with this issue it is perhaps relevant

 

[CatFan79]

I won't be satisfied until Ron Bakir comes to the rescue.

 

[The 747]

I've said it before, but unless you can pull up a set of doping control forms showing that all AFL players are specifying all the supplements that they are taking, this is no evidence of intent.

And I've said it before, the fact that someone else may have been speeding as well is not a defence to speeding. The rules say don't speed, saying look over there is not a valid defence.

 

[neutralguy]

Some of the NFL players accepted a deal. Those who didn't accept a deal and refused to talk in interviews got off scot free. That's the system that the players are unfortunately signed up to.

So we've got a sliding scale:

Essendon players who cooperated in interviews but didn't take a deal from the prosecutor: 2 year bans
Cronulla players who didn't cooperate in interviews but took a deal: 3 weeks
Cronulla players who didn't cooperate in interviews and refused to take a deal: Scot free.

Justice!

Wow, take off your red and black glasses and stop with the rubbish. Cronulla players actually got a 12 month ban but because they aren't EFC you try and make it seem like they got 3 weeks, they had backdating and so did your cheating mob.

 

[QuietB]

Wow, take off your red and black glasses and stop with the rubbish. Cronulla players actually got a 12 month ban but because they aren't EFC you try and make it seem like they got 3 weeks, they had backdating and so did your cheating mob.

The most insane thing about that argument is that 3 weeks or so was available to Essendon. But Essendon were a little too self righteous for that

 

[Just interested]

I don't disagree with any of that (although I'd point out that the afl are themselves a major constituency, being the largest and most powerful sporting code in the country, and I don't really see any evidence to suggest other sports even combined would outweigh their impact). What I do dispute is merely the unsupported assertion that the government would absolutely penalise the code. They may. That's about all that can be said.

As an aside, and not referring to you here, it is interesting how many people take such exception at merely being asked to examine and recognise when they are making absolute statements based on implicit unsupported assumptions

I thought you were traveling fine, Lance, until I got to "I don't really see any evidence to suggest other sports even combined would outweigh their impact."

Which measure of "impact" would you like to use to combine football, league, rugby, cricket, the various runnin', jumpin', liftin' and throwing pursuits, tennis etc, etc.?

 

[Lance Uppercut]

The (what I thought was obvious) point was, if the Government of the day wants to enforce an International Agreement the Courts have shown they will support them.
Now I fully understand that kind of rationale doesn't assist you in your world but to many who have the power to think about how a particular Government might deal with this issue it is perhaps relevant

"in my world"?

 

[andrewb]

And I've said it before, the fact that someone else may have been speeding as well is not a defence to speeding. The rules say don't speed, saying look over there is not a valid defence.

I was not suggesting it was a valid defense, I was suggesting that it does not prove intent. The two are vastly different. Manslaughter vs murder.

 

[The 747]

I was not suggesting it was a valid defense, I was suggesting that it does not prove intent. The two are vastly different. Manslaughter vs murder.

Forget about everyone else - player X fails to fill in form correctly = evidence of intent to deceive. That's a valid conclusion. Perhaps other players Y & Z have the same evidence of intent but they don't have the other circumstances (EFC players) in play.

Edit - to your use of the word "prove", whether or not you and others think that something is not proven is irrelevant. The people who matter in this case found it proven, therefore it is proven.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

I thought you were traveling fine, Lance, until I got to "I don't really see any evidence to suggest other sports even combined would outweigh their impact."

Which measure of "impact" would you like to use to combine football, league, rugby, cricket, the various runnin', jumpin', liftin' and throwing pursuits, tennis etc, etc.?

well I don't see any evidence? Do you? I added combined a bit later and yeah, it's probably the wrong word as it sets an adversarial tone I was specifically seeking to debunk. The point I was (clumsily I guess) trying to make was exactly what you've come back to me with, which is how do you quantify the impact of the constituencies? You really can't.

Eveyone seems to be on the same page that if the government employs its will to enforce a treaty then it will be enforced, but if they don't it won't necessarily be. I've made a couple of consistent points; namely that the original decision was enforced strongly by the Howard government; that that decision is not demonstrated to be an immutable policy position of all governments now and in the future (there are very few of these); that it would require the investment of political capital should the afl declare their intent to do this (which I freely admit, and have done so often, is highly unlikely) to stop them and that's not a given that it would be palatable; and that therefore the absolute assertion regarding punitive sanctions from the government is an implicit and unsupported assumption.

So far no-one has provided any evidence that this is not the case, and you and most others seem to be agreeing with me in what you say but just trying to make various points that it could happen, which isn't in dispute

 

[Muggs]

Some of the NFL players accepted a deal. Those who didn't accept a deal and refused to talk in interviews got off scot free. That's the system that the players are unfortunately signed up to.

So we've got a sliding scale:

Essendon players who cooperated in interviews but didn't take a deal from the prosecutor: 2 year bans
Cronulla players who didn't cooperate in interviews but took a deal: 3 weeks
Cronulla players who didn't cooperate in interviews and refused to take a deal: Scot free.

Justice!

for the one's you claim got of scot free, last years ASADA annual report had the other NRL cases as on going. Suspect now that the EFC case is over and CAS found them guilty you find they might accept a deal shortly.

 

[Sir Hugh Percy]

They trusted the wrong guy - and he's been shown to have duped the players at cronulla, GCS, melbourne, baseball teams, etc - they are not on their pat. Unless you think it's some sort of grand doping scheme between all the players at all those clubs then you can't plausibly attach intent to anyone except Dank and Robinson.

This is just plain wrong. Show us any evidence that any players at those other teams were duped.

• The Cronulla affair is about a subset of the main list meeting clandestinely to get gear from Dank - doesn't seem at all that they were duped, does it?
  
• He's only accused of doping Bock at Gold Coast and Bock may well have been completely in the know about what he was getting; we haven't been given any information otherwise.
• At Melbourne he advised Dr Bates on what to do with the players and didn't have direct contact with them. He ONLY refers to Thymomodulin in ALL correspondence with Bates. We have zero evidence that any duping was going on. In fact, we have zero evidence that any doping was going on. Now, if he was supplying Bates with the thymomodulin, it's possible that he was switching that out for TB4. But lying about what's in the syringe could bring him up on criminal assault/fraud charges and I don't think even Dank would mess with that. In my opinion, he was just trying to get his foot in the door at Melbourne with the innocuous thymomodulin, and had every intention of rolling out an Essendon-like programme after he was successful.

An awful lot has been made of the Essendon players concealing their 'thymo' injections from ASADA testers, but not nearly enough of them concealing them from Dr Read. I reckon everything points to the Essendon players believing that they were operating in a grey area of the WADC created by supposed loopholes around compounding and the S0 clause. Did Dank 'dupe' them on that or did he actually believe in those loopholes himself? I guess we'll never know, but there's a huge difference for non-Essendon supporters between 'mistakenly' taking a banned substance because you thought you were only being a bit naughty and operating in a grey area, and been told by everybody at the club that it was all above board only to find out that it wasn't. And the proof, for mine, that they believed they were being just a bit naughty, and weren't in fact lied to, is that not one of them discussed their 'thymo' injections with Doc Reid.

 

[Ancient Tiger]

I was not suggesting it was a valid defense, I was suggesting that it does not prove intent. The two are vastly different. Manslaughter vs murder.

Intent is irrelevant in doping. Ahmed Saad had no intent to dope but he did and got a long ban. Olympic athletes who have taken pseudo ephedrine for a cold did not intend to cheat but lost gold medals.

I'm not sure why it is important. Whether they intended to cheat or cheated unintentionally makes no difference. What does make a difference is that they were so poor in following basic rules they could not show that they had no fault to the CAS. The CAS could not give them leniency because of this fact. Once it was established they received TB4 from Dank (3 out of 3 Judges including Essendon's pick) they were at their mercy.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

"in my world"?

Yes
Defend at all costs including jettisoning rational thinking
Introduce spurious alternatives to drown out know facts
Deny plausibility and reasonable deduction

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Yes
Defend at all costs including jettisoning rational thinking
Introduce spurious alternatives to drown out know facts
Deny plausibility and reasonable deduction

hmm interesting.

You do realise that my position is that EFC cheated by doping their players, right? And that I don't even believe the players were completely innocent victims? And that whilst I would support an appeal if it could get up I wouldn't support an injunction on the sentence?

All I ever wanted was to make a judgement based on all the facts and to reserve judgement until that day. When it was such that the players were cleared I took that on face value. I take the CAS verdict the same way.

But of course, I have Essendon under my user name and have the temerity to have opinions that aren't complete and utter groupthink, so hey, you're probably right eh. Derp

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

...my position is that EFC cheated by doping their players.
....I don't even believe the players were completely innocent victims.

Apologies, I hadn't seen your views expressed since the CAS outcome, so it's refreshing to read.

 

[mxett]

Players co-operated? Bullshit!

"Aww umm yeah I kinda remember the name of the drug you mentioned but I dunno... ummm..."

ASADA praised the players and club for their co operation. You calling ASADA liars?

 

[Ancient Tiger]

ASADA praised the players and club for their co operation. You calling ASADA liars?

It is called diplomacy mxett. When you actually see what they actually said or didn't say, it paints a completely different picture. No wonder Hird tried to stop these sort of responses from becoming evidence. They were well below par and overall a triple bogey.

 

[mxett]

Agree 100%. It makes me wonder where that leaves every other player now. You can't necessarily trust the people who are in charge of making sure what you allow to be put into your body is compliant. Strict liability dictates every player should now be checking every substance for themselves for peace of mind. I wonder if that's actually happening? You'd bloody hope so given what everyone has just witnessed at Essendon.

The players have a difficult task in a sporting club setting. Every time the club doctor goes to give a player a local anaesthetic injection, for stitches or pain relief, the player must check if the substance is compliant. Every time a trainer runs on to the field to give a player a drink from a bottle the player really needs to check the content of the bottle if they are to protect themselves under the WADA code. I wonder how often this was happening prior to 2013? I wonder how often it happens today?