Essendon: good news and bad news
Barely one day after the Essendon supplements saga appeared to have been wrapped up, reports emerged today that the club’s nightmare is set to continue.
The Bomber’s club doctor Bruce Reid was cleared yesterday when the AFL said it had withdrawn all charges against him without penalty.
It followed Essendon’s acceptance of sanctions, losing their finals spot and coach James Hird being suspended for a year.
Today, The Australian reports that the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) is preparing infraction notices against Essendon players and club officials that could result in lifetime bans from all sport.
“Essendon coach James Hird, people and development manager Danny Corcoran, former high-performance manager Dean Robinson and sports scientist Stephen Dank, as well as players involved in the injecting scene, are all in ASADA’s sights,” the paper reports.
In a separate report today Melbourne newspaper The Age details how Bruce Reid and his medical staff had been “blind-sided and marginalised” in the Bombers’ supplements scandal.
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“Ten months after Essendon doctor Bruce Reid wrote to James Hird to express concern about player injections, the club’s medical staff again complained in writing of ”picking up the pieces of something that was running out of control,” The Age reports.
“The reference to ‘picking up the pieces’ was made by Dr Reid’s fellow club doctor Brendan De Morton in an October 2012 email to Essendon’s then high-performance boss Dean Robinson, after the doctors learnt the football department was considering billing Medicare for nearly 100 heart diagnostic checks on players that cost almost $10,000.
“In an episode yet to be made public, internal emails show that Dr Reid and Dr De Morton were unaware of the extent of the heart diagnostic checks and believed that billing Medicare would trigger a fraud investigation.”
Colleagues of Dr Reid yesterday supported his stance in the wake of the AFL decision to withdraw charges.
AFL medical association executive officer Dr Hugh Seward said the organisation was initially disappointed Reid had been rolled into the proceedings against Essendon.
“I was disappointed he was charged, but I think the focus now is on the fact that the charges have been dropped,” Seward told SEN radio in Melbourne.
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“We’re delighted that’s the case and I know Bruce is a greatly relieved man.
“He’s a huge supporter of the AFL’s approach to the controlled use of supplements and trying to avoid the scenario that, in fact, developed in his club.
“He feels very much that he was blindsided and kept in the dark by the people who were running the program.”
Seward accused elements within Essendon of making sure that Reid was unaware of the full extent of the controversial supplements program.
“I don’t know whether I’d use the word ‘bullied’, but he was certainly kept in the dark and they did things to avoid him knowing about it, from what I understand,” Seward said.
“He was certainly blindsided and not aware of what was going on because of the way they did it off-site and, at times, when he was not around.
“I don’t think he was marginalised by the club – I think he was marginalised by the people who undertook this program without the knowledge of most of the people at Essendon.”
Reid plans to return to his position as Essendon’s senior medical officer in January after taking a period of leave.
The AFL said it accepted Reid’s position, prompting it to withdraw all charges against him without penalty.
Coach Hird was suspended for 12 months for his role in the supplements scandal, with football manager Danny Corcoran suspended for four months and senior assistant coach Mark Thompson fined $30,000.
The AFL also banned Essendon from participating in the 2013 finals series, fined it $2 million and imposed draft sanctions on the club for the next two years.
