ASADA to Appeal SAAD Decision

[Mr Magic]

Just announced by KB on SEN.

[dragit]

Oh no, poor bugger... Very likely career over if that is the case.

I wonder what the penalty would be for say... systematic injections of thymosin beta 4 and other banned peptides?

Will be a travesty if Saad is the only one banned for PED's after this fiasco.

[joffaboy]

Not suprised.

[chook23]

not unexpected

[BigD]

They probably just want the full two years with no reduction.
Bit of a soft target for a bit of chest beating.
When are they gong to take on the big boys?

[8856brother]

It's actually laughable now.

[SENsei]

What a disgrace. Systematic cheating gets nothing. An energy drink gets 18 months and they want two years.

Any chance of them doing their jobs and issuing some infraction notices against Essendon players? Oh no, they were following instructions, that's right.

Flowering crock of s***.

[3rd generation saint]

Can Saad's defence bring this up in his case to show the hypocrisy of Asada.

[70s sainter]

Watson admitted to injecting hexadren..... And gets off Scott free . This is a f@#king joke. Asada are a absolute farce.

[markp]

Says to me bummers players should expect little leeway and need to brace themselves for a full whack too.

Saad made a (very) silly but simple mistake with a legal product (drink) that's only banned on competition days... bombers players went all 'black ops' and were signing consent forms and going off-site to be injected with gawd knows what kinds of filth, without any of them once checking with ASADA/WADA.

But if it should turn that Saad gets 2 years and bombers players get nix, I reckon I'd give the game away.

[Stian]

+1 to all of the above.
I guess 2 years was to be expected because of the precedent of the 2 VFL players, who each copped the 2 year ban but I just get so frustrated that it is only the "little people" who are the token "cheats" to show that the ASADA system is working. It would be funny if it wasn't so unfair and such a serious issue. bugger bugger bugger

[SemperFidelis]

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/a ... 2yrt3.html

Exactly what was worrying me when they did that SEN interview the other day making public admissions. I guess they may have know ASADA would appeal and were trying to get ahead of the story, but still …

[bobmurray]

I think Essendon were smarter than they are given credit for, the lack of records, the appearance of an out of control drugs program was deliberate.

They knew they were stepping over the line, they just deliberately did it without leaving an obvious trail for any investigators should they get busted.

Dank and the shredder are probably the only ones who know what really happened and the shredder is mute.

The Saad thing is cut and dried, so is the penalty. The whining VFL player will now be rejoicing.

[bergholt]

It's actually laughable now.

Why? Of course he should get two years. That's the penalty prescribed for a positive test to a substance banned in competition. Open and shut case. The AFL were just trying to be cute by giving him 18 months and hoping that ASADA would let it through to the keeper.

The Essendon thing is completely different, there's not even any point comparing them. No positive tests, experimental substances which may or may not have been banned, conflicting evidence, etc. It sucks for Saad but he did the wrong thing and he's going to pay a very big price.

[gringo]

ASADA and WADA are both joke organisations and only ever really get a small proportion of serious cheats. They are really only there to let the murders run free while putting the guy with a parking infraction in an electric chair to scare off other serious cases.

Armstrong was nearly geriatric when they finally acted on their information. They rarely keep up with the latest serious drug cheating methods anyway.

[8856brother]

Ben Cousins and Lance Armstrong never testing positive gives you an indication of what sort of organisation we're dealing with. Why isn't Caro all over them. We only need to fart.

[Dr Spaceman]

We only need to fart.

Yep. We'd cop an Infartion Notice for sure!

[SAAD]

time to go vigilante on these s c u m bags...

Charles Bronson....Death Wish style!

[SinCitySainter]

Timing is interesting.
No mention of appealing the Saad penalty until after the media bring to light the dodgy deals Wiley and the AFL secured on behalf of Essendon.
Now that Wiley and ASADA are being shown to be corrupt they come out and say no look we really are tough on drugs in sport (as long as you are poor).

[Johnny Member]

At the risk of being unpopular....

....rules are rules.


He took a banned substance. And has admitted to taking on many occasions.

So simply, that's 2 years. End of story.



As for Essendon, one can only assume that due to the greyness of the whole situation (ie. no hard evidence) it will take longer. But I'd be very, very surprised if they don't all get notices also.

As we know, there are three issues with the Essendon thing...

1) For whatever reason, there is a grey area clouding the AOD thing
2) There is no evidence that the banned Thymosin beta 4 was actually given to the players
3) It appears that no one that ASADA have interviewed, can categorically say what they were given


So for them, unless it's proven that AOD was banned, and/or they are convinced that the players were given Thymosin beta 4 or any other banned substances - then they'll be in the clear.


My personal thoughts are that they already have them on AOD, but are building the full case to ensure they get them on anything else also.


But for Saad, there is no grey. It's clear as day. It was banned, he took it, and was caught red handed.

[SaintPav]

Essendon too big to fail.

Little and Hird are from Toorak.

Ahmed is just an Egyptian boy from Preston.

[magnifisaint]

We only need to fart.

Yep. We'd cop an Infartion Notice for sure!

Well Caro does smell of rotting fish

[maverick]

At the risk of being unpopular....

....rules are rules.


He took a banned substance. And has admitted to taking on many occasions.

So simply, that's 2 years. End of story.



As for Essendon, one can only assume that due to the greyness of the whole situation (ie. no hard evidence) it will take longer. But I'd be very, very surprised if they don't all get notices also.

As we know, there are three issues with the Essendon thing...

1) For whatever reason, there is a grey area clouding the AOD thing
2) There is no evidence that the banned Thymosin beta 4 was actually given to the players
3) It appears that no one that ASADA have interviewed, can categorically say what they were given


So for them, unless it's proven that AOD was banned, and/or they are convinced that the players were given Thymosin beta 4 or any other banned substances - then they'll be in the clear.


My personal thoughts are that they already have them on AOD, but are building the full case to ensure they get them on anything else also.


But for Saad, there is no grey. It's clear as day. It was banned, he took it, and was caught red handed.

It's proven AOD is banned, is it proven they took AOD?

[dragit]

It's actually laughable now.

Why? Of course he should get two years. That's the penalty prescribed for a positive test to a substance banned in competition. Open and shut case. The AFL were just trying to be cute by giving him 18 months and hoping that ASADA would let it through to the keeper.

The Essendon thing is completely different, there's not even any point comparing them. No positive tests, experimental substances which may or may not have been banned, conflicting evidence, etc. It sucks for Saad but he did the wrong thing and he's going to pay a very big price.

Open and shut in terms of guilt yes… but what people are interested in is the level of punishment applied considering the crime.

The substance Saad has taken is 100% okay to take every day of the week - except on match day… therefor this substance mustn't be ranked very highly in terms of long term performance enhancement.

If this substance attracts a 2 year ban, where does it leave an athlete who is deliberately using a higher graded substance like HGH or EPO?

If Essendon are found guilty of what we all know they have been doing, then the penalties to their players would have to be at least double what Saad has received.

Consent forms - signed for a systematic injecting program, conducted offsite to allude officials, substances not fit for human use, muscular dystrophy medicine from Mexico, banned peptides… as we know, it goes on & on.

4 years ban would not be enough if weighted against what Saad is guilty of and his subsequent ban period.

[Johnny Member]

At the risk of being unpopular....

....rules are rules.


He took a banned substance. And has admitted to taking on many occasions.

So simply, that's 2 years. End of story.



As for Essendon, one can only assume that due to the greyness of the whole situation (ie. no hard evidence) it will take longer. But I'd be very, very surprised if they don't all get notices also.

As we know, there are three issues with the Essendon thing...

1) For whatever reason, there is a grey area clouding the AOD thing
2) There is no evidence that the banned Thymosin beta 4 was actually given to the players
3) It appears that no one that ASADA have interviewed, can categorically say what they were given


So for them, unless it's proven that AOD was banned, and/or they are convinced that the players were given Thymosin beta 4 or any other banned substances - then they'll be in the clear.


My personal thoughts are that they already have them on AOD, but are building the full case to ensure they get them on anything else also.


But for Saad, there is no grey. It's clear as day. It was banned, he took it, and was caught red handed.

It's proven AOD is banned, is it proven they took AOD?

Watson admitted to it. So that's as close as you could get to proof I would think.

But for whatever reason, they're not moving on the AOD thing yet. It's either due to the fact that it's grey as to whether or not it was banned (as per Gerard Whateley's mail) or due to the fact that they still are investigating all the other stuff and will act on AOD and whatever else, when they've completed the full investigation.