AS JAMES Hird bides his time in France, spending the million dollars extraordinarily given to him by his club after he had left it and the game of football in disarray and disgrace, Essendon players continue to live a nightmare.
Those players received major reprieve today though when the AFL, in a decision even more extraordinary than Essendon’s decision to pay Hird a staggering sum to do nothing in 2014, ruled that all legal costs of defending players in the ASADA case would be salary cap-exempt.
“This is in accordance with current practice whereby clubs organise and pay for players’ legal expenses when they are contesting a charge at the AFL tribunal or appearing before the appeals board,” said AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon in explaining the decision.
Really? Is it?
Let’s try to work our way through this.
Legal defence at a tribunal hearing usually comes after an on-field decision made by a player in the heat of battle. An elbow to the head sometimes, maybe a forearm to the jaw.
Legal defence in this ASADA matter involving the Bombers comes after the football club itself subjected its players to a “pharmacologically experimental environment”, with that phrase coming directly from a document commissioned by the club itself.
Spot the difference?
By international standards on world doping cases, it was already strange enough that the club had committed to paying for the mess it created for its players.
And now we have the governing body of Australian football, the AFL, approving the club’s high-cost and high-end plan to vigorously attack anything that ASADA throws its way, without ramifications on the salary cap, the most sacred facet of the AFL system.
An already embarrassingly messy situation for so many people at the AFL and Essendon Football Club just got a whole lot messier.
Other football clubs look on not just in astonishment, but disbelief.
In a week where the game announced a series of equalisation and competitive balance measures, the club which has brought disgrace to the competition and all those who attempt to play within the confines of fairness, is given an almighty salary cap reprieve.
Remember, the AFL charged the Bombers with bringing its game into disrepute, hit the club with the greatest array of sanctions ever seen, and suspended Hird for a year.
Essendon officials told players’ parents at a meeting three weeks ago that it would be paying for ASADA-associated legal costs.
During the same period, the AFL Players’ Association outlined options for players in the event of show-cause and infraction notices being sent.
One of those options discussed was a player’s right to, in turn, sue the club.
Pretty sure the club won’t be paying for that action, should it eventuate.
The AFL remains very worried about what lies ahead with this ASADA matter and expressed that view quickly, and without going into any detail, during Wednesday's gathering of AFL club presidents in Melbourne. It knows that it is not just players who are facing show-cause notices, but those in the administrational chain of command.
It fears not just months of turmoil, but years.
Interestingly, and in contrast to how this issue played out last year, the AFL is now on Essendon’s side.
It wants the matter to miraculously disappear, and there was no chance of that being the case if it didn’t provide the salary cap relief.
