Stephen Dank, the man who led Essendon’s 2012 dietary supplements program, says he was “set up”.
The declaration was revealed within the Herald Sun, which launched a multi-part collection investigating one of many darkest intervals in AFL historical past on February 5 – the 10-year anniversary of Essendon self-reporting its considerations about what its gamers have been injected with a yr prior.
The medicine saga started when 34 Bombers gamers have been injected with substances corresponding to anti-obesity drug AOD-9604 and thymosin – later concluded by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to be the banned performance-enhancing Thymosin Beta-4.
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As a outcome the membership was banned from the 2013 finals collection, handed a $2 million fantastic and had draft picks taken away, whereas then-coach and membership nice James Hird was suspended for 12 months.
The 34 gamers concerned, which included captain Jobe Watson, present captain Dyson Heppell, many gamers who had since left the Bombers like Paddy Ryder and Jake Carlisle, and a few who had retired like future GWS stand-in coach Mark McVeigh, went by means of a rollercoaster of hearings.
Having been discovered not responsible by the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal in 2015, they have been then banned for 12 months by the CAS, costing them the 2016 season and condemning Essendon to the picket spoon after they have been pressured to stack their line-up with top-up payers. Watson was stripped of his 2012 Brownlow Medal.
However most of the Essendon devoted, together with these contained in the membership on the time, have all the time maintained the membership’s innocence – together with sports activities scientist Dank.
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Brisbane will quickly rule on whether or not anti-doping company paperwork associated to the case will likely be launched underneath Freedom of Information legal guidelines – although Sports Integrity Australia (which changed the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority), the AFL and Essendon itself are attempting to stop the discharge.
As a part of that case, Dank accomplished a sworn affidavit during which he states there as “literally … no evidence of wrongdoing against me at Essendon”.
Dank believes the set-up in opposition to him started when his telephone was confiscated following a visit to Qatar, “on the spurious grounds that they were looking for pornography”.
“Customs downloaded everything from my phone. There was no pornography (but) to the best of my memory, there were nearly 7000 text messages,” Dank stated.
Per week and a half later he was questioned by authorities investigators “for about seven hours”.
“It was a compulsory hearing, where I was not only compelled to attend, but also not permitted by law, to discuss,” Dank stated.
“Suffice to say, when coupled with customs confiscating my phone … I believed I was being set up.”
Dank stated one of many 7000 texts present in his telephone associated to thymosin beta-4 however this was unrelated to Essendon, and alleged the texts have been manipulated by investigators.
Read extra of the Herald Sun’s multi-part collection, one decade on from the Essendon medicine saga, right here.
Originally revealed as ‘I was being set up’: Stephen Dank’s explosive claims, one decade on from Essendon medicine saga
Source: www.news.com.au
