AFL, ASADA Warned During 2012 Essendon Investigation That Probe Was Potentially Illegal

The Australian Football League and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority were "warned within weeks of launching an investigation" into AFL side Essendon's '12 season supplements regime that their "joint probe was potentially unlawful," according to Chip Le Grand of NEWS LIMITED. Correspondence between lawyers acting for Essendon coaches and "support staff, the AFL and ASADA in the early stages of the joint investigation form part of the club's Federal Court challenge against the anti-doping authority." The correspondence will draw a "reluctant AFL into the high-stakes legal stoush." Although the AFL is "not a party to the Federal Court case, the documents show" it knew before suspended Essendon coach James Hird or any players were interviewed that the joint investigation was "formed on contentious legal grounds" (NEWS LIMITED, 7/23).