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AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan hopes the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority won't challenge the decision to clear 34 past and present Essendon players, allowing the two-year saga to finally be put to rest.
McLachlan has also requested full transparency by way of a public release of the Anti-Doping Tribunal's findings, but acknowledged that was a decision for the players to make under the anti-doping code.
Click here to read Gillon McLachlan's full statement
ASADA, which will hold a press conference in Canberra on Wednesday, has 21 days to challenge Tuesday's decision.
If it chooses not to, the World Anti-Doping Authority then has the same window to lodge an appeal of its own.
McLachlan hoped that 42-day period would close without a challenge and the AFL could place a full stop on the long-running saga.
"The AFL wishes to reinforce that ASADA and WADA have rights to appeal the decision," McLachlan said at AFL House on Tuesday afternoon.
"My personal view is no [they shouldn't] … there's been a decision made after a long protracted period.
"I'm sitting here as the chief executive of the League knowing the evidence has been properly heard by an independent Tribunal and they've made that decision.
"After such a long period of time it's in my interests now that the competition can go forward."
McLachlan said the AFL was committed to being as transparent as it could in the aftermath of Tuesday's decision and he hoped the players would allow the full release of the Anti-Doping Tribunal's 133-page summary.
"Transparency is something we're looking for but there are questions that will never be answered out of all of this," he said.
"The broader public and our industry would like transparency but the players have got to make the decision in the context of what's right for them as well and I respect that."
McLachlan stood by the penalties handed down by the AFL in 2012, which saw Essendon fined $2 million, kicked out of the finals and stripped of valuable draft picks.
He said Tuesday's decision was about the 34 players and not Essendon, which was also quick to again acknowledge its governance failings on Tuesday.
"We all need to move forward together," McLachlan said.
"That's certainly what we want, I think it's what the Essendon football club wants, and I certainly know that's what our competition needs and all our supporters need."
The AFL is conducting a review into its own handling of the long-running Essendon saga, and McLachlan pledged to make those findings public if there was no appeal from ASADA or WADA in the next 42 days.
To find the players guilty on Tuesday, the Tribunal of chairman David Jones, John Nixon and Wayne Henwood needed to determine to a "comfortable satisfaction" that a banned drug was taken.
It is still unclear what the Essendon players were given in 2012, but McLachlan said ASADA had every right to prosecute its case that the players were given a banned substance.
"ASADA made a decision based on the evidence they had," he said.
"I understand why they made that decision, but the evidence has now been considered by an independent Tribunal.
"On what I read, and I need to be careful because it's a confidential document, but I think what we can say is what was established by the Tribunal was that they weren't comfortably satisfied that it was thymosin beta-4.
"I think there are some people who say they know what they were given and I think the players would love to know."
McLachlan said a decision on the former Essendon staffer, known to be Stephen Dank, was expected after Easter.
