f*** off..c***

[Gimps]

The age footy web page (mobile format) has an ad for "Essendon style performance enhanced draft fantasy footy".

Am I too precious? Or is that just deliberate provocation? f****** c****.

Nope, they are smart c**** that deserve a slap.

[j-mac31]

Am I too precious? Or is that just deliberate provocation? f****** c****.

If it had been Carlton you'd be laughing.

[nudder12]

Am I too precious? Or is that just deliberate provocation? f****** c****.

If it had been Carlton you'd be laughing.

True, but it's still wrong - at least until something is proven

[F111]

This note was apparently left on the Carlton FC web blog today from a real fan:

Dear Carlton Football Club,

For the past 100 years we've had a rich history of salary cap breaching, rape hush money, underworld ties, tanking, poaching players, draft tampering, owning Arden Street, VISY, corporate corruption, & brown paper bags. We have the biggest trophy cabinet in the league and decades of constant success driven by a win-at-all-costs mentality while showing utter disregard for all AFL rules. As a passionate supporter I have fully embraced our culture and I am extremely proud of what it had allowed us achieve.

So when I heard about this systematic doping scandal I expected that as a powerhouse club we would be at the absolute forefront of this science. That we would have set up our own underground drug labs and the worlds best sport scientists concocting all sorts of performance enhancing recipes in-house that no-one had ever heard of - anabolic leg injections to make Armfield kick straight, peptide pills that would cure Aaron Joseph's utter shitness and some sort of animal DNA mutation therapy to remove McLean's turtle-like qualities. We'd probably even be conducting illegal human testing on Norf's second tier playing list as a part of our ownership of their club.

But no, we are in the middle of the biggest cheating scandal in AFL history and Carlton is not even one little bit involved. Not a single mention, not even a hint of a mention. In fact the only drugs administered at the Carlton Football Club over the past few years are botox injections by Bryce Gibbs' beautician.

There may be loser clubs like the saints & Bulldogs who would be happy to accept decades of mediocrity while playing within AFL rules - but not Carlton supporters. The fact that undetectable performance-enhancing drugs exists and we are not fully exploiting them to our advantage is an utter disgrace. It goes against the fabric and principles that this very club was built on.

You have changed Carlton. You have lost the very identity that made you a huge success and the envy of 15 other clubs. Get back to your roots, cheat your hearts out and start ordering a few more shelves for our club's trophy cabinet.

[rockhole]

LOVE IT

[BenDoolan]

Haha, I get the feeling this piece has been modified from a letter a few years ago. Since then, thee have been two more teams added to the competition

[Megan]

Nah. The mighty Dons and Collingwood don't envy them. Still only 15 teams that would.

[Jazz_84]

Two AFL players use new whistleblower policy


TWO AFL players have used the new whistleblower policy to report irregular practices at their clubs to the league.

The policy was introduced following the Australian Crime Commission’s report into the possible use of drugs and match fixing in Australian sport and guarantees confidentiality for anyone coming forward with information.

AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou confirmed last night that the two unnamed players were the first to come forward under the new whistleblower rules.

''Since the ACC findings a couple of players have already come forward,'' Demetriou told Fairfax media. ''They both said: 'I wanted to come forward before but I didn't'.''

While he wouldn’t reveal what clubs the players were from, or detail what information they revealed, Demetriou said it proved that players were prepared to break their silence for fear of being labelled “dobbers”.

''It's not the 1960s or the 1970s. We're talking about potential funding cuts, millions of dollars in lost sponsorship, brand damage and potential litigation against board members - that's to use the analogy of what's happening at Essendon at the moment,” he said.

seriously this guy is a f****** flog.... he "says" he wants teams/players to come clean, then boasts about the massive punishments handed out if they do.... Me thinks he doesn't want anyone to come forward at all

[rockhole]

I would not want to have anything to do with a club whose own players dob in their mates for anything less than homicide.

Any club that supports that sort of culture is doomed.

[BenDoolan]

Wow, lets see;

a) no mention of what was revealed and no mention of what club was involved. In other words, the AFL are just sweeping it under the carpet like the players have done over all these years. So what happens if players come forward? Nothing!
b) this proves what a f****** waste of time and money drug testing actually is. It has uncovered SFA drug cheats and now they rely on people coming forward to provide information

[j-mac31]

I would not want to have anything to do with a club whose own players dob in their mates for anything less than homicide.

Any club that supports that sort of culture is doomed.

Or does it create a culture of honesty and not cheating?

[Megan]

I would not want to have anything to do with a club whose own players dob in their mates for anything less than homicide.

Any club that supports that sort of culture is doomed.

Or does it create a culture of honesty and not cheating?

I'm unsure where I stand on this. If one player could call out something that prevented the club being dragged through the mud and potentially shitcanned out of the comp for two years, wouldn't you take it? (Not that I'm sure it applies in this situation.)

No I in team, clubman, one in all in blah blah blah is all good and fine but if you have the chance to save the brand of your club?

[billyduckworth]

Same as you, Megan, I feel in two minds about this.

On the one hand, I understand the whole team thing, all in, stick together, blah blah blah.

But on the other hand, sometimes when things are really going wrong, it's important to have someone brave enough to put up their hand and say, "hey, I think we're doing the wrong thing here."

This applies in business, as well as sport. Sometimes it even applies in families.

I guess the question is, have we currently in the AFL reached this level of seriousness, where someone needs to put their hand up, or is the whole thing a massive overblown load of rubbish concocted by an incompetent ACC trying desperately to prove its value?
I'm in two minds about that one too!!

[Gimps]

I wouldn't want them on my team. If the issue is serious enough, they should be going to their club administrators to sort it out. If it can't be resolved within the club, then it would mean that the club itself is indeed f*****.

I can't see how an issue can't be resolved internally. It's not like it is a local footy club that engages in more politics than Canberra.

[j-mac31]

I wouldn't want them on my team. If the issue is serious enough, they should be going to their club administrators to sort it out. If it can't be resolved within the club, then it would mean that the club itself is indeed f*****.

I can't see how an issue can't be resolved internally. It's not like it is a local footy club that engages in more politics than Canberra.

Great point. I think I'm definitely anti-dobbing in the AFL now.

[j-mac31]

Essendon chairman David Evans has emphasised his determination to ensure the players avoid suspension as a result of the investigation into the club's supplements program last year.

And captain Jobe Watson said while the players had felt pressured in the past month, it had eased as the games had started and his teammates could sleep comfortably at night assured of what they had and had not done.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/b ... z2McoQRmfR

[Jazz_84]

So the Sharks in the NRL (who Dank has been involved with) looks to be in serious trouble with anywhere up to 14 players could be stood down immediately..... makes we thank god that we have these signed forms to fall back on, Dank could be in serious serious trouble if this is all linked to him

[billyduckworth]

So the Sharks in the NRL (who Dank has been involved with) looks to be in serious trouble with anywhere up to 14 players could be stood down immediately..... makes we thank god that we have these signed forms to fall back on, Dank could be in serious serious trouble if this is all linked to him

Wooo - 14 players is a hell of a lot!

Does this mean that DANK is the key to all this?

And does this mean we are in trouble too??

[Jazz_84]

So the Sharks in the NRL (who Dank has been involved with) looks to be in serious trouble with anywhere up to 14 players could be stood down immediately..... makes we thank god that we have these signed forms to fall back on, Dank could be in serious serious trouble if this is all linked to him

Wooo - 14 players is a hell of a lot!

Does this mean that DANK is the key to all this?

And does this mean we are in trouble too??

yeah it's a lot, and a few of them are at new clubs now, they are saying 6 of them were set to play this weekend but is in doubt now, because ASADA want them to enter an early guilty plea and accept a 6 month ban

Buggers me

Buggers me

[Sartorius]

Sounds like Dank was "pushing the boundaries" at the Sharks, but using legal supplements. He then left, the supplements became illegal, yet the players continued to use them. You'd hope that they would be more on top of the changes to the banned substances list than that.

I saw one article that suggested "at least one player was given warfarin". I'm not sure if this is true, but there is no way someone could actually play NRL whilst on warfarin. Warfarin is a "blood thinner", used to prevent clots. In doing so it makes one more likely to bleed, as the clotting process normally curbs bleeding. Playing contact sports is a big no-no on warfarin, and playing NRL would see you straight off to hospital in a very short amount of time.

Anyway, a good article on the whole thing on the conversation:

http://theconversation.edu.au/cronulla- ... ping-12694

Particularly interesting is this quote from the senate inquiry (found in the comments section):

Senate Inquiry into the ASADA Bill-

Senator BERNARDI: I just have a couple of pertinent ones. After the press conference there was a lot of discussion through the media and a lot of supposition, and there were complaints that athletes associated with Essendon Football Club allegedly had gone off site and had injections and all sorts of things of that nature. It is not uncommon for athletes to be injected with legal substances or vitamins. Can you agree with that?

Mr Hollingsworth : I am sorry, the question is: is it unusual for athletes to be injected with legal substances?

Senator BERNARDI: Including vitamins or other supplements.

Mr Hollingsworth : I understand that practice does occur, although it does vary within the various sports and codes. I know the Australian Institute of Sport, for example, has clear protocols around that.

Senator BERNARDI: Meaning they do not provide injections to athletes?

Mr Hollingsworth : There are a very limited number of injections that are authorised by medical staff.

Senator BERNARDI: That are authorised by medical staff?

Mr Hollingsworth : Medical practitioners.

Senator BERNARDI: Would that include vitamin injections?

Mr Hollingsworth : Unfortunately, I cannot answer that. I need the chief medical officer here to answer that question. I do not know the answer.

Senator BERNARDI: Okay. You may want to take this on notice: what supplements are provided to scholarship holders within the Australian Institute of Sport? I would like a list of them.

Mr Hollingsworth : Supplements are used by Australian Institute of Sport athletes. The AIS has a very robust supplement policy in practice which categorises supplements into four tiers.

Senator EDWARDS: Could you give us a list of those?

Senator BERNARDI: I would like a list of them.

Mr Hollingsworth : I do not have a list here.

Senator BERNARDI: You might want to take that on notice. It comes back to the point that there is a lot of talk about peptides in here and ethical issues associated with supplements. Can you assure us that no AIS athlete or scholarship holder has been subject to testing to see whether there is any performance enhancing benefit of using legal substances, or substances under a prescribed amount, in order to comply with the WADA code to boost that athlete's performance?

Mr Hollingsworth : What I can give you an assurance of is that I have great confidence in the practices, protocols and application of sport science at the Australian Institute of Sport, and our appraisal and assessment, following the release of the ACC report, gives me great confidence that such practices do not occur.

ACTING CHAIR: Can we see your assessment? That is just, in my view, bureaucratic blurb. Could we actually see the document that made you arrive at that position?

Mr Hollingsworth : What the senator is asking me is whether I can give him an assurance that no-one has ever engaged in this activity. I cannot do that. There is no evidence of that. I have been given no information to support that.

Senator BERNARDI: No, there is evidence and it has been released. We come back to it: there are substances that you can take that will boost performance up to a certain amount, and they will comply with the WADA code. You cannot tell me, because I know the answer, that the Australian Institute of Sport, through their sport science research facilities and other extensions of this, have not worked with athletes to maximise the performance of the athlete using legal supplements that comply within Australian criminal law and within the WADA code. Are you going to tell me that I am wrong?

Mr Hollingsworth : No, I agree with you.

Senator BERNARDI: Right. And yet that is pushing an ethical boundary, which this report has been scathing of, because some athletes are using legal substances, or they have not tested positive, or there have been peptides or whatever it might be. Whether it is caffeine or peptides, it does not matter. If they are not proscribed under WADA and they are not illegal, why is ASADA wading into it?

Mr Hollingsworth : I think that the ACC report makes reference to some of the substances that are on the banned WADA list.

Senator BERNARDI: Some, but it also talks about others.

Mr Hollingsworth : Some. Also, it makes reference to substances that have not been tested on humans.

Senator BERNARDI: So what?

Mr Hollingsworth : So what?

Senator BERNARDI: It is an individual's—it is not against the law.

Mr Hollingsworth : It comes back to an issue of athlete safety. I can talk about this directly because it is in my sphere of influence. We have a large number of sports scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport, probably in the vicinity of 60 to 80. The practice and protocols for sport science are: firstly, that athlete safety must be paramount—that is the first point about using drugs that are untested on humans; secondly, the legislative or compliance framework such as the WADA code; and, thirdly, general notions of integrity and fair play, which are very important. I will keep coming back to this point because it is important that the sports commission is committed to promoting integrity in sport, and feels that the peak body needs the necessary powers to be able to pursue its function, reflecting the reality that there are limits to testing.

Senator BERNARDI: What is this bill going to do to someone who decides to experiment on themselves and take a cocktail of illegal substances and berries, roots and nuts and whatever else they want to take and put into their body? They have not failed any drug test. They have not broken any law. Whether it enhances their performance or not—it might be all mental; it might be all placebos—what is this bill going to do to that person? Are they going to put that person in jail?