Blackest day in Australian sport: No winners at Essendon, while AFL still has plenty to answer for

ANALYSIS: IT was February 7, 2013, the blackest day in Australian sport. Or so it was said. Twelve months on, it's virtually amounted to sweet FA.

IT was February 7, 2013, the blackest day in Australian sport.

Or so it was said.

Criminals, bikies and underworld figures had infiltrated Australia's sporting codes, and mad scientists in long white coats and sports fitness staff with muscles as best mates, were giving out drugs like they were candy on Halloween.

There were claims of match-fixing and the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and heavy-hitting organisations such as the ACC and ASADA and WADA would be working closely with AFL, the NRL and the FFA to counter the alleged use of drugs such AOD-9604, CJ1295 and TB4.

Sport was in chaos.

Today is February 7, 2014.

Twelve months on, it's virtually amounted to sweet FA.

Unless the authorities are withholding information, the blackest day in Australian sport was nothing of the sort.

AFL crackdown on gambling, drugs

Bomber- No looking back

Try the cream, the bone, the white, the off-white, the ivory or the beige. But not black.

Since that fearmongering day in Canberra, just one sportsperson has been suspended for use and trafficking of a performance-enhancing drugs and he is Canberra Raiders winger Sandor Earl.

Closer to home, a seven-month investigation by ASADA and the AFL into Essendon's supplement program in 2011-12 has resulted in zero charges against the players.

There's been casualties, no doubt, but what started as accusations that the players had been fed banned drugs, via injections and intravenous drips, ended with a bomb being dropped on the Essendon Football Club for their shoddy governance.

The players are thought to be OK, that's if you describe as OK a 12-month environment of fear and loathing and finally a broken finals campaign. And there's been the waiting. They're still waiting. It's a joke. ASADA has arguably shown itself to be an under-resourced, underwhelmed government department.

News_Image_File: Stephen Dank. Picture: Jon Hargest

Just this week they whinged about nobody wanting to talk to them an the federal government appointed a retired judge to review the mess.

That ASADA and the AFL entered into a joint investigation of Essendon is largely agreed to be the one of the more outrageous decisions in Australian sport.

Talk about judge, jury and executioner.

Throughout, it created an environment of mistrust and serious issues of leaking and conflicts of interest, accusations that continue to dog the AFL.

Most damaging were attacks on the AFL's integrity.

On day one of the Essendon saga, it was said the Bombers would be looked upon favourably for "self-reporting".

At the end, after some real and unreal claims on drug use, the Bombers were handed a $2 million fine, lost draft picks for two years, and had coach James Hird suspended for 12 months.

Hate to see them looked at disfavourably.

It makes you wonder why Essendon "self reported'' to the AFL and ASADA in the first place.

If ASADA had investigated Essendon on its own - without the AFL - and did not find sufficient evidence the players took banned drugs, as what happened, could it all have been so different for the Bombers?

Undeniably, the ACC report, which it has been alleged was tipped off to Essendon, prompted the greatest savaging of a football club in the history of the game.

In that sense, it was the blackest period for the Bombers.

There are no winners.

News_Rich_Media: Essendon coach Mark Thompson has told James Hird he will look after his team in 2014. The Bombers launched their membership campaign exactly 12 months after the supplement saga hit the headlines.

Certainly not at Essendon, where in no particular order, Hird, Ian Robson, Danny Corcoran, Paul Hamilton, Dean Robinson and Stephen Dank all had their employment terminated and their reputations hurt.

Dank remains the perceived villain and it would appear the first time we'll hear from him is when he launches legal action against various bodies and individuals, likely to include ASADA and the AFL, and AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou.

It would be nice to hear from Dank, even if it's a doorstop outside of his house to see how the most-viewed front garden on 2013 TV fared through the scorching summer.

This is not a revision of the whole supplements saga, yet many questions remain.

Corcoran, who lost his wife at the end of 2011 and was officially the head of football only for a couple of months in 2012, was suspended for four months and lost his job three weeks ago. This, despite club doctor Bruce Reid, who threatened to take the AFL to the Supreme Court, having all charges against him dropped.

How is that consistent?

Of course, the Bombers regret what happened. There were too many injections and they were not always properly supervised. Hand on the bible, they can't honestly say the players didn't take banned drugs. Dank has said he didn't give them any, and Essendon has its fingers crossed.

Faith in the AFL powerbrokers is at an all-time low.

The Hird saga alone, including his $1 million pay deal, deeply embarrassed Demetriou.

The AFL, too, has moved in recent days and weeks to bolster its integrity unit, headed up by Brett Clothier.

Two experienced police officers have joined the department and a wide-ranging list of laws were announced yesterday.

But the AFL also has some questions that need answering, in particular Clothier.

Did he really submit a file note two years after the event, detailing his alleged ''warning'' to Hird to stay away from peptides?

And what about the revelations surrounding the secret deals conjured between AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, Essendon chairman Paul Little and Australain Sports Commission chief John Wylie last August?

It's been 12 months and it feels the questions still outnumber the answers.