Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority boss Ben McDevitt, contemplating whether to appeal the AFL tribunal finding, has lambasted Essendon for running an injection program he has termed "absolutely and utterly disgraceful".
McDevitt launched at the football club despite the fact that 34 current and former Bomber players were found not guilty by an AFL anti-doping tribunal on Tuesday of taking banned drug thymosin beta-4. After a two-year anti-doping investigation, this was a judgment that left the accused footballers, and members of the club hierarchy that have survived the scandal, feeling vindicated.
While McDevitt's response prompted a former head of ASADA, Richard Ings, to predict that the government-funded sports anti-doping body seemed likely to appeal the ruling, it has 21 days to decide. A source indicated on Tuesday the decision would not be made or announced hastily.
In the case that ASADA opts not to appeal, that right will still be open to the World Anti-Doping Agency for a further 21 days.
CEO of the government-funded drug agency since July, McDevitt said the common characterisation of the regimen Essendon ran in 2012 was wrong.
"What happened at Essendon in 2012 was, in my opinion, absolutely and utterly disgraceful.
"It was not a supplements program but an injection regime and the players and the fans were so poorly let down by the club," McDevitt said.
An appeal by ASADA would be pursued through an AFL appeals board in the first instance.
WADA director general David Howman told Fairfax Media last week that he was committed to reviewing the investigation regardless of the tribunal's finding.
"We will review the entire investigation when all the cases that have resulted from it have been completed," Howman said.
"We will discuss all elements with the Australian government and ASADA."
WADA appeals about 40 anti-doping decisions annually from an average pool of around 2000 that are made globally in sport.
If WADA appeals any aspect of the Essendon case – the AFL anti-doping tribunal has deferred its ruling on Stephen Dank, the scientist who ran the program at the Bombers – it will be via the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
After promising three weeks ago that he would hold a "full media briefing" on ASADA's entire investigation into drugs in sport after the AFL tribunal's decision, McDevitt will talk at length on the topic in Canberra on Wednesday.
On the anti-doping tribunal's finding that it was "not comfortably satisfied that any player was administered Thymosin Beta-4", McDevitt said on Tuesday: "While I am obviously disappointed that the charges in this instance have not been proven to the comfortable satisfaction of the tribunal, I am pleased that the tribunal was able to finally hear these matters."
