CAS bans 34 AFL players
Print Edition
Thirty-four Australian Football League players were yesterday slapped with lengthy bans for doping offenses in a case officials called “the most devastating self-inflicted injury by a sporting club in Australian history”.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal against an AFL tribunal ruling last March that cleared past and present players from the Melbourne-based Essendon club of using the banned substance thymosin beta-4.
The tribunal followed an in-depth probe by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority that examined the club’s player supplements and sports science program which sent shockwaves through the game.
The AFL had hit the top Australian side with the biggest fine in the sport’s history — 2 million Australian dollars (US$1.6 million) — and banned coach James Hird for 12 months for bringing the game into disrepute.
However, Montreal-based WADA took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.
The court ruled it was “comfortable” that the AFL doping code had been violated “and found by a majority that all players were significantly at fault”.
“Regrettably we can confirm the Court of Arbitration for Sport has found 34 past and present players guilty of committing an anti-doping rule violation,” Essendon chairman Lindsay Tanner said in a statement.
“As a result, the players — including 12 currently listed with Essendon — have been suspended for the 2016 season. The club is currently digesting the decision.”
The AFL season begins in March. Twelve of the players banned are still on Essendon’s books, including captain Jobe Watson. Other players are now at rival Australian rules clubs while some have retired.
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