Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority CEO Ben McDevitt blamed the "blackest day in Australian sport" for cruelling the Essendon investigation before it began, with an already complex task made "very, very difficult" by the unprecedented publicity and scrutiny surrounding its work, according to Le Grand & Martin of THE AUSTRALIAN. McDevitt "defended ASADA against accusations of bureaucratic mismanagement and dithering" and claimed the final brief of evidence against 34 current and former Essendon players was presented to an anti-doping tribunal in a "convincing and compelling" way. However, McDevitt said that "the agency would review its own handling of the case," which failed to prove a doping charge against any Australian Football League player. ASADA and the World Anti-Doping Agency "have 21 days to lodge an appeal." The ASADA review comes amid a renewed push by Greens senator Richard Di Natale to establish a broad "root and branch" inquiry into Australia’s anti-doping framework. The "elusive figure" at the center of the drugs scandal, sports scientist
Stephen Dank, "has indicated a willingness to testify at a parliamentary
inquiry into the anti-doping body." McDevitt said, "ASADA was placed in a position where we had to do an investigation
under incredible media scrutiny from day one. That is
not the normal way that these matters are progressed." McDevitt "played down the split that emerged between ASADA’s
investigators and lawyers over how best to construct the case and
whether to charge players with doping." The tribunal "is yet to hand down its decision in the case against Dank,
who is accused of 34 infringements of anti-doping rules at Essendon and
the Gold Coast Suns" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 4/2). In Melbourne, Samantha Lane wrote Steven Amendola, the lawyer who has acted for James Hird throughout Essendon's two-year drug scandal, said that McDevitt, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan, most of the AFL Commission and AFL Competition Integrity Manager Brett Clothier "should all resign over the ordeal." Amendola said that "his position was a personal opinion." He said, "I haven't talked to my client about it. They are my views ... having gone through this process." Despite his criticism of the man who took over from Aurora Andruska last July, Amendola "believes the government-funded ASADA deserves to have its powers bolstered following the most high profile, and contentious, drug investigation in Australian sports history." Amendola: "ASADA should have greater powers so that the body truly operates independently. In other words, no joint investigations so you can actually get confidentiality protections for athletes, and support people, that are meaningful" (THE AGE, 4/2).
