{"id":23444,"date":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/uncategorized\/bombers-to-prove-innocence-again-says-james-hird\/"},"modified":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T00:00:00","slug":"bombers-to-prove-innocence-again-says-james-hird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/sport\/bombers-to-prove-innocence-again-says-james-hird\/","title":{"rendered":"Bombers to prove innocence again: Hird"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essendon coach James Hird says he’s surprised the World Anti-Doping Agency has decided to appeal “comprehensive” not guilty verdicts on players involved in the club’s supplements scandal, but he’s adamant they’ll be cleared again.<\/h3>\n

Hird said on Tuesday that the AFL anti-doping tribunal’s decision in March to clear 34 current and former players of using the banned peptide Thymosin beta-4 during the 2012 season was “emphatic”.<\/p>\n

He said WADA’s announcement that it plans to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport has shocked the club and will be a distraction to his team just as they thought they were done with the two and half year saga.<\/p>\n

“They’ve gone through it once … they believe they’ve done nothing wrong, they believe they haven’t taken anything illegal,” Hird told reporters in Melbourne on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“We believe that, the AFL tribunal believes that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“They’ve been proven innocent once, and they’ll be proven innocent again.”<\/p>\n

last month ASADA opted not to appeal the judgment, which followed a two-year joint ASADA-AFL investigation.<\/p>\n

But WADA, based in the Canadian city of Montreal, announced on Tuesday (AEST) it would take the case to CAS.<\/p>\n

“After a thorough examination of the evidence contained within the file, WADA has decided to lodge its independent right of appeal to the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” WADA director general David Howman said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The decision means the protracted supplements scandal will bleed well into a third successive AFL season as Bombers players once again face possible suspension.<\/p>\n

Hird woke up to the news early on Tuesday morning and said he still had very little information about what the next phase entails.<\/p>\n

“Actually we have no information as to the appeal, and we don’t even know where it’s going to be or when it’s going to start, so of course it will be a distraction,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s out of our hands really.”<\/p>\n

Appeals to CAS – of which Australian Olympic Committee head John Coates is president – are heard “de novo”, meaning the whole case will start fresh and won’t be restricted to what has already been argued.<\/p>\n

Hird said the club just wanted it over with “as quickly as possible”.<\/p>\n

“It was a two-and-a-half-year investigation, a comprehensive tribunal decision and basically said that players were not guilty,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone who’s read that decision is pretty adamant that it’s a very thorough decision, it was a comprehensive not guilty and the players are innocent.<\/p>\n

“We have to deal with the process that’s been put in place. The players will respect the process, the club will respect the process, and we’ll go through it again.”<\/p>\n

Earlier on Tuesday, Essendon chairman Paul Little said WADA’s announcement had taken everyone at the club completely by surprise.<\/p>\n

“Everyone involved has pretty much got their lives back … but now it looks like we have to jump back on the horse,” Little told Triple M’s Hot Breakfast.<\/p>\n

The move was welcomed by ASADA chief executive Ben McDevitt, who remains convinced Bombers players took a banned substance as part of sports scientist Stephen Dank’s controversial program.<\/p>\n

“ASADA has handed over a comprehensive brief of evidence to assist WADA in its preparation for the CAS hearing,” McDevitt said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Former ASADA boss Richard Ings described it as “courageous”.<\/p>\n

In a separate judgment made last month, the AFL Tribunal cleared Dank of 21 of 31 charges while finding him guilty of multiple offences of trafficking banned substances.<\/p>\n

He has indicated he will appeal the findings against him.<\/p>\n

AFL chief executive Gill McLachlan said he was not surprised by WADA’s decision to appeal the not guilty finding as it was one of two options open to the anti-doping body.<\/p>\n

“I think my views on this subject are well known,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

“But we were obviously prepared and contemplated the fact that they might appeal and now the process is going to be the process.”<\/p>\n

He stressed the AFL had little involvement in the next stage of the ongoing saga.<\/p>\n

“We’re not a party to the proceedings,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think we have ‘standing’, which means our lawyers can be in the room, but this is something between the Essendon playing group and WADA in a different jurisdiction.”<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: WALSH IN CHARGE, SAYS DANGERFIELD<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: CROWS LEAD POWER IN TRADE CHASE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Essendon coach James Hird says he’s surprised the World Anti-Doping Agency has decided to appeal “comprehensive” not guilty verdicts on players involved in the club’s supplements scandal, but he’s adamant they’ll be cleared again. Hird said on Tuesday that the AFL anti-doping tribunal’s decision in March to clear 34 current and former players of using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"geo_market":[],"class_list":["post-23444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBombers to prove innocence again: Hird - FIVEAA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/sport\/bombers-to-prove-innocence-again-says-james-hird\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bombers to prove innocence again: Hird\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Essendon coach James Hird says he’s surprised the World Anti-Doping Agency has decided to appeal “comprehensive” not guilty verdicts on players involved in the club’s supplements scandal, but he’s adamant they’ll be cleared again. 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