Essendon besieged

Instead, its concern appears to be to position itself in a battle for public opinion, to gain a competitive advantage in negotiations with Essendon to cut a deal. During Friday night's AFL series expert commentators seemed to agree this was the aim, and that such an agreement would emerge this week. There is nothing improper about this; the need for sporting organisations to have this freedom is one reason why courts respect their autonomy, and will intervene only in exceptional circumstances, such as a denial of natural justice.

However that may be, and whatever the liability of the club, if there is no proven dishonesty or wilful or reckless endangering of players' health it is unfair to brand coaching and medical staff as persons of disreputable character. The severity of this penalty, the abstract nature of the liability, and the AFL's self-interest in protecting its name, call for an independent hearing. The League has a duty to all members who make the game possible - coaches, medical staff and clubs as well as players - it should not compromise this duty just to prove it is tough on drugs.

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INTERESTS, GIVE RISE TO PUBLIC CRITICISM OR. In which case we need to ask if Essendon's management failures are really different in kind to those which have been levelled at the AFL itself.

Essendon has already conducted its own examination of the governance and management failures which allowed a culture of "pharmacological experimentation" to develop at Windy Hill under former high-performance manager Dean Robinson and sports scientist Stephen Dank. As a result of that review, conducted by Ziggy Switkowski, former chief executive Ian Robson quit his job. Robinson and Dank are no longer employed by the club.

The Australian, August 14

Last night's AFL decision was the obvious result from the very moment on February 5 that Essendon's then president, Evans, its then chief executive, Robson, and coach Hird fronted the media to announce they had asked the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority to investigate the club's 2012 supplements program.

It was poke-you-in-the-eye obvious that the club's administration and football department had failed in their responsibility to ensure that proper governance protocols were in place to monitor the welfare of the players. And that led to serious and regular breaches of the club's duty of care.

For those too absorbed by the passion of the game to get their head around that simple fact in February, then the Ziggy Switkowski report - independent, external and called for by Evans - was released in March and it underlined the seriousness of the breaches that took place at Essendon the year before. So embarrassed and worried by its contents, Evans said this on the day Switkowski's report was issued: "I want to apologise to our players and their families, to our members and supporters, to the AFL community, about what has happened at Essendon.

"I want people to focus on Dr Ziggy Switkowski's first recommendation and that is that the pioneering work of supplements should be left to the Australian Sports Commission.