Essendon Bombers first domino to fall in AFL anti-doping probe
Anti-doping investigation launched in February has scalped one of most powerful teams, and now attention turns to individual players
A seven-month probe into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Australian sport has scalped one of the country's most powerful franchises in the Essendon Bombers, but the Australian Rules football club may be only the first domino to fall.
The investigation came to a dramatic head late on Tuesday when stone-faced administrators slapped the Melbourne team with the harshest punishment in the Australian Football League's (AFL) 116 years, for using their players as guinea pigs in an experimental and possibly illegal supplements regime in 2011-12.
One of the nation's oldest and most successful AFL clubs, with a record of 16 championships equalled only by cross-town rivals Carlton, Essendon's 2013 season ends in ignominy, disqualified from competing in the play-offs next month and hit with a A$2 million (HK$13.9 million) fine.
The club, who declared more than A$65 million in revenue last year, have also been stripped of draft picks for the next two seasons, while head coach James Hird, a former champion player and one of the game's most revered identities, has been banned for 12 months.
Rival clubs and players in the popular 18-team league hope the stinging punishment will put a line under a scandal which has tainted the innocent along with the guilty and reduced the on-field action to a sideshow.
But the sprawling investigation launched by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (Asada) in February, dubbed "the blackest day" in the country's sports history by a former chief of the agency, continues.