In the end, David Foster Wallace summed it up as well as anyone when he said that acceptance is usually a matter of fatigue more than anything else – and fatigue is a good a word as any to describe the Essendon supplements scandal.
Jobe Watson’s decision to hand back the 2012 Brownlow medal and place the game ahead of individual honour was rightly applauded, particularly in the context of the club’s interminable tactic of fighting the AFL, Asada and Wada. That the Bombers’ chairman Lindsay Tanner put out an accompanying statement saying that Essendon “take[s] responsibility for placing Jobe in this position and unreservedly apologises to him and his family,” was also a welcome change in rhetoric.
But while Watson’s statement was contrite, it also hinted that he was simply worn down and acknowledged that his decision did not in any way reflect a change in his personal opinion. Instead it reflected his “desire to put to a close further speculation about what should be done with the 2012 Brownlow medal”.
This shouldn’t diminish the fact that Watson reached a decision that should not have been his to begin with, but rather one the AFL appeared unwilling or incapable of making – despite being able to use the cover of being a signatory to the world anti-doping code. You can’t help but feel had Watson held his ground, the AFL would have outsourced the decision to AFL fans through an online poll, proudly brought to you by its official sponsors.
A breach of this code is of course something the AFL should not outsource or even have feelings about, it is simply something that is. Wada operates on the consensus that performance enhancing drugs are bad for sports. For any middle-pew Catholic, moral arguments around the players’ culpability are almost of a secondary concern – it is the athlete who is ultimately responsible for what goes into their body. The lines have been drawn, the lines exist and the Court of Arbitration for Sport has upheld that 34 Essendon players, including Watson, crossed the lines. This is the framework in which the AFL agreed to work within. Is it not expecting too much of a football’s governing body to, well, you know… govern?
That the AFL asked Watson to make a case to keep the Brownlow is yet another example of an administration that’s sick of its burden, but lacking any other bluff to run other than “taking out the trash” during the white-heat of the US election to announce that seven AFL clubs had been handed fines by the league for failing to keep player information up to date in regards to drug testing.
Or there is Lachie Whitfield’s Baby-Sitters Club adventure at the home of Craig Lambert, the missed drugs test, and the decision to cut a deal with Whitfield, Lambert and Graeme Allan that saw them accept negotiated bans that fall under the AFL’s disrepute rules rather than the anti-doping code and the four-year penalty – and if the Essendon saga is a guide, an arduous four-year process – that comes with it. Although in Allan’s case, the point is largely moot, having resigned from his position as Collingwood’s general manager of football in the wake of Tuesday’s announcement.
The negotiated resolution (granted one that was signed off by Asada, which could also probably do without the scrutiny of another drawn-out process) was dependent on all three agreeing to the terms of the suspensions. That is to say, should either Allan or Lambert have refused the deal, preferring to plead their innocence at CAS, the player they were allegedly trying to protect could be on the hook for a career-ending suspension. For Lambert, who former Brownlow medallist Simon Black said “goes above and beyond” in terms of the welfare work he does for players and their families, the decision would’ve been a no-brainer.
The negotiated wording of the charges and admissions also appear to be the most recent matinee in which the AFL reveals its slight-of-hand in applying punishments that allow those who transgressed to avoid an admission of guilt (ref: Melbourne, 2009).
The AFL’s tactics around the Whitfield issue bring to mind the findings from researchers at Northwestern University that rhesus monkeys would starve themselves rather than pull a chain that administers an electric shock to a companion. Unfortunately at the AFL, it appears that the rhesus monkeys have left the basement and taken up corner offices.
But as the study suggests, even monkeys occasionally pull the right chain.
In announcing that the 2012 Brownlow medal be awarded to West Coast’s (previously Hawthorn’s) Sam Mitchell and Richmond’s Trent Cotchin, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, came close to striking the right tone – both effusive in his praise for Watson’s noble and honourable gesture (albeit without thanking him for allowing the commission to save face) and in mouthing the supplement scandal’s “stain on the game.”
However, given the AFL’s hesitant handling of the saga up until this point, Fitzpatrick’s “stain on the game” remark had a hollow feel to it, not unlike the acoustic qualities of a bowling alley. While both Mitchell and Cotchin are worthy medallists, had the commission vacated the 2012 medal, it would have brought the severity of the supplement scandal and its sorry impact on the game into relief. But perhaps the commission is as worn down as the rest of us and was never in a statement-making mindset, instead simply wanting it to go away with as little fuss as possible?
So with the Brownlow returned, and the playing bans served, the supplements saga has largely been drawn to a close and it is Watson who is the only actor in this drama to have enhanced his reputation. Though the sad fact is that it still has a way to play yet, and will not be over until Watson and his 33 team-mates know once and for all exactly what they were injected with. Unfortunately that is something we may never know, and perhaps we’re too fatigued to do anything other than accept that.
