As he watched the packed media conference off camera on February 5th 2013, no doubt concerned for where the game he had fostered as CEO of the AFL for 10 years was about to head; Andrew Demetriou would have been very familiar with the man explaining to the cameras his decision to ask the AFL and ASADA to investigate his club – and not just because he was the Chairman of Essendon.

David Evans and Demetriou go back you see.  Way back.

 

When Demetriou made the move from the AFL Players Association to the AFL 15 or so years ago it was Evans’ late father Ron, himself a former Essendon Football Club President and then Chairman of the AFL, who took the former Kangaroo and Hawk under his wing and mentored him in his eventual role as CEO of the AFL.   It was only natural that Demetriou would cross paths with Ron’s son David, a rising businessman of similar age.

When David decided to follow in his fathers footsteps in 2009 and take over the leadership at Essendon it was Demetriou who supported him, sending him a “very nice letter of congratulations“.
Demetriou had 2 years earlier spoken warmly at the funeral of Evans Sr, a mark of his closeness to the man and Evans family.

So when Demetriou was briefed in late January 2013 by the Australian Crime Commission on the intelligence that had been gathered about possible doping at an AFL club;  while rumors had been swirling for some time about Essendon’s supplements program run by Stephen Dank the previous season; it probably didn’t take Einstein to figure out that the two should have a chat.

What we know for sure is that chat came via phone on the night of February 4 while Evans, Hird and a few key Essendon personnel were meeting at Evans’ home.  But from there things get a little fuzzy.  One version of events – Hird’s and apparently Essendon Football Manager Danny Corcoran’s – has Evans getting ‘tipped off’ by Demetriou that players at his club had been taking performance enhancing drugs (PED’s).
The other version – Demetriou’s and Evans’, denied that tip off was given.  Either way it was news to Hird, who was certain the accusation was incorrect.

You’ve doubtless heard these stories before so there’s no need to detail an entire timeline, but the discussions of that night and meetings at AFL House the next day would lead Essendon to “Self Report” itself to the AFL and ASADA.
The ACC briefing had clearly scared Demetriou, and it appears in turn he’d spooked Evans into that Press Conference, seemingly giving more weight to Demetriou’s concerns than Hird’s.  At the least Demetriou, as the AFL CEO, accepted the ‘self report’ and helped organize it and what would follow.

It would turn out to be one of the worst decisions made in the history of Australian sport.

 

17 months after that Press Conference Evans is back running his Investment House while Demetriou is looking to profit from football in another way.  Neither man would survive the fallout from their decision, though Demetriou, of course, wouldn’t frame his departure that way.

Despite flippant responses to the topic from some media obvservers, the question of whether the Essendon Football Club was coerced into the decision to self report is important, mostly because it was a howler that would inflict untold damage on the game and club, damage still occurring some 17 months later.  It also immediately confirmed Essendon’s guilt before hearing any evidence against it in the eyes of much of the country, something a private investigation would largely have avoided.

Imagine for a moment an alternate universe, where Damian Barrett’s interview with Kyle Reimers about lots of injections and ‘sciencey stuff’ was the actual breaking of the huge story that is constantly claimed any time Barrett is introduced on any of his shows these days.  An alternate universe where rumor swirled for months; as it so often does in the fishbowl world of the AFL; but was deflected by Essendon’s media people, while a private investigation was taking place at the hands of a publicly untarnished ASADA.
Likely many competent people at all of Essendon, the AFL and ASADA would have jobs which are no longer theirs, the reputations of a couple of the biggest names in the game in Hird and Demetriou might be largely intact rather than in tatters, new ASADA chief Ben McDevitt (or likely a different hire not from such a law enforcement background) would have been under no pressure to ‘put up or shut up’ and therefore likely wouldn’t have brought ‘show cause’ proceedings that are appearing more and more flimsy by the day, and finally the AFL world wouldn’t be sick to death of hearing about this interminable story that has cast a pall over last and this season.

Hird and the football department were (and remain) by all accounts unequivocal that the players hadn’t taken any substances that would contravene WADA’s doping code, so it’s a safe bet they weren’t in favor of self reporting.  Perhaps they sensed sooner than Evans and Demetriou that trying to catch this lightning in a bottle would backfire on all involved.  Evans though, somehow, was convinced enough to sensationally tell the world that he was throwing open the doors of his football club to the AFL and ASADA effective immediately, a move recently lamented by Evans’ replacement at Essendon Paul Little.

Hird clearly didn’t know at the time how badly it would turn out for him personally (I wonder if Evans did), but looking back his fate was sealed the moment the ‘self report’ was done – as were the fates and reputations of just about every Essendon staffer seen to have any contact with or oversight of the supplements program.  Somewhat strangely almost all that is apart from Evans himself, who after leaving the club under a health cloud in mid 2013 has surprisingly been almost immune from any public investigation in this mess.
That’s somewhat surprising given he was the most senior official of the club during both the supplements program and ensuing scandal.

The immediate AFL and Evans strategy at the time of self reporting was clear and possibly in Evans’ case even noble enough : ‘no matter what’ the players needed to be spared.  According to Michael Warner at the Herald Sun this week a deal was reportedly struck whereby the players were allegedly assured by those investigating that they were not the primary target of the investigation and, seemingly regardless of what the investigation turned up, they would not face sanctions.  They were encouraged to openly cooperate with AFL and ASADA investigators without any real fear of repercussions and from all accounts did just that, even vaguely answering questions they didn’t totally know the answers to in an effort to assist – as it now turns out to their detriment with ASADA apparently counting some extremely vague recollections as hard admissions.

For Demetriou the need for immediate clearance of the players was obvious; losing an entire team worth of players to drug suspensions would be catastrophic for the AFL as a body, its competition, and the lucrative media rights deal Demetriou had fought so hard to get.

Evans’ motivations aren’t quite so straight forward – certainly they could have been genuine concern and protection for the players, but doubtless he also knew that having his entire team suspended for 2 years – or as it appeared at the time from the wild speculation taking place in the media possibly even longer – could spell the end for the club he loved.

What it all added up to was simple, if the players were to be spared, the off field staff, and most vitally coach James Hird, would have to be sacrificed.  And not sacrificed in a “good luck and here’s your gold watch” kind of way, rather a “these are the evil doers of bad deeds so gather your pitchforks” kind of way.
Enter Hird, whose main crime it appears in hindsight was wanting his club to have a better and more cutting edge  supplements program than 11 other clubs around the league – but despite all the innuendo certainly wanting a legal one.

Two things really made the scapegoating of Hird both vital and possible.
Vital because it appears the AFL thought, incorrectly in hindsight (seriously you’re going to see that phrase a LOT over the coming months and years) they were going to be confronted with massive PED use by the Essendon players based on the intelligence from the ACC report.  Getting ASADA to agree to a ‘no fault’ no penalty type deal was one thing, but if the players were shown to have been under a systematic doping regime using multiple illegal products for extended periods, ala East German athletics in the 70’s (such was the hysteria of the time), someone had to be blamed for it, or the public simply wouldn’t accept no sanctions on the players.
Possible because of that same deal that the AFL had struck up with ASADA.  That deal being in place meant that the AFL could really go hard on building a circumstantial case for public consumption using a mixture of fact, irrelevant but scandalous information, unproven intelligence and hearsay; without fear of it blowing back on the players in the shape of suspensions.
Evidence from certain people that helped build the AFL’s case was considered and included, while evidence to the contrary which helped Essendon’s case was not.  It was the kind of case building that can really only be done for show and not if it’s going to be tested at trial.
It never was, of course.

Ironically this method of building the damaging yet untested so called ‘charge sheet’ may have helped lead to the players eventually getting their show causes notices from ASADA last week.  The AFL’s ‘charge sheet’ built a circumstantial case of thymosin beta 4 use or attempted use as part of its campaign to quickly get Hird and Essendon to accept their own sanctions.  Bet they wish they hadn’t included it now.

 

Anyway from all of the sensational stories we read, all of the cat calls, the lists as long as your arm in both major Melbourne papers of wildly exotic sounding supplements and drugs (it’s called conditioning folks, note the difference in tone from articles in this saga to this from 2009 when describing treatments) – who would have thought after 16 months of investigating, the whole thing would have boiled down to maybe one dodgy substance, maybe given to some players by mistake in place of a legal close relative?  That the chief of ASADA would be playing “let’s make a deal” via the media the day show cause notices were issued in order to try to wrangle a face saving win?

This was worth self reporting for rather than just letting ASADA do its job David and Andrew?  Really?

Unfortunately for Evans and Demetriou, at some point the political wind changed around ASADA’s thinking.  Certainly no one was kind to them after the release of the ‘Interim report’, a disaster of a decision made to enable the AFL to exact its judgement on Essendon before last years finals, thus giving the appearance (and reality) of draconian punishment being applied to the club and coach – going along no doubt with the initial deal struck.   Rather than shut the whole thing down at that stage ASADA decided to leave it open, presumably while they waited to interview Stephen Dank.  But as time passed and details started to emerge about deals done to spare players in one code and not another you could feel the pressure begin to mount on ASADA.  Certainly by early this year it was apparent this case wasn’t just going to be closed, and by the time of Ben McDevitt’s first press conference when he talked so tough about players being responsible for what’s in their bodies, it was clear what was to come.

It can’t have been a great position for McDevitt either.  If after 16 very long and very frustrating months he admitted defeat and closed the case ASADA’s image may have never recovered, not that it probably will anyway.  After all this wasn’t a desperately secretive Lance Armstrong they were investigating, the Essendon players and administrators had agreed to all interviews and reportedly been open and extremely cooperative during them.
His alternative was to do what he’s done now.  Issue show cause notices that may or may not stand up (or may be usurped by other legal action).  Even if he ‘loses’, at least his Agency would be seen to have found something, anything, maybe justifying the incredibly drawn out process.

 

Either way, for the men responsible for the Bombers self reporting in Evans and Demetriou, ‘show cause’ at all let alone possible suspensions was a horrible result.  But honestly, the damage from their foolhardy decision was done long ago, a death by a thousand cuts that could and should have been avoided.
The position they were put in prior to that February 5 Press Conference was an unenviable one certainly, particularly knowing what we know now about the contrived nature of the ‘Blackest Day’ and scare tactics surrounding it.  That said, the decision they took was all wrong.

They thought that by getting on the front foot they could contrive or at least shepherd an outcome that would best suit the league.  They were wrong.
They thought that by coming forward, self reporting and fully cooperating, the investigation would go easier on Essendon, they’d receive some goodwill and be kept abreast of developments.  They were wrong.

They thought they were doing the right thing for both the game itself and the Essendon Football Club.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Both men have plenty to answer for, or at least plenty of questions to answer.