Harley Balic’s father Eddie slams AFL drugs secrecy amid Sport Integrity Australia probe

The father of former AFL player Harley Balic says his son’s tragic story could have been avoided if the league had informed his family of the late footballer’s drug issues.

PERTH, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 29: Harley Balic of the Dockers sidesteps Sharrod Wellingham of the Eagles during the round six AFL match between the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers at Domain Stadium on April 29, 2017 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

The father of ex-Melbourne and Fremantle footballer Harley Balic, who died after a battle with substance abuse two years ago, says he blames the AFL and its illicit drugs policy for the tragedy.

Breaking his silence after the Herald Sun revealed Balic’s death had become the focus of a Sport Integrity Australia investigation into the league’s controversial drugs policy, Eddie Balic said:

“I believe that the AFL has a duty of care to formally intervene early into young vulnerable players who have been identified as having substance abuse issues.

“I also feel that had better support been put in place early for my son, it may have prevented this tragic outcome.

“The huge disappointment is that the AFL knew a lot and as a family we weren’t told. We may have saved him earlier.

“To this day it disappoints me that no one from senior management of the AFL has ever made contact with me over the terrible loss of my son.”

Balic died in 2022. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)

Balic died in January 2022, just four days after turning 25, following a battle with drug addiction.

During his three-year playing career, Balic was placed into the AFL’s “medical model”, enabling him to take drugs repeatedly without penalty.

Balic witnessed Fremantle players using drugs just days after arriving at the club in late 2015, sources allege, and he soon became an addict in the AFL system.

He was traded to the Demons in late 2017 and retired the following year.

Balic’s case is referenced in a statement made by former Melbourne doctor Zeeshan Arain, which was handed to SIA by federal MP Andrew Wilkie last month.

In his statement, Dr Arain said: “Often list management is used to solve a lot of problems.

“It gets to the point where they (AFL clubs) are like, ‘Well, if we can’t help this player, we will move them on.

“And the problem is that the player doesn’t cease to exist to be a person once they are not in your club, the duty of care still goes on.

“Take Harley Balic, for example. A few years after Harley Balic left the Melbourne Football Club he was dead related to drug use.”

Images from Harley Balic’s funeral booklet.

Dr Arain was interviewed by SIA investigators in Melbourne last week.

Under the so-called “medical model” - which the AFL only detailed last month - players identified as occasional or regular drug users are exempted from the three strikes program.

The players can be secretly tested “off the books” before games to ensure they are not positive, potentially being withdrawn from their team with fake injuries to avoid suspensions under the world anti-doping code.

Global anti-doping chiefs have pilloried the AFL over its secret testing procedures.

SIA has the power to investigate all sports integrity matters beyond whether the AFL has breached the world anti-doping code in authorising the “off the books” tests.

Harley Balic after he was drafted by Fremantle.

SIA chief David Sharpe, a former Australian Federal Police officer who has pursued drug cartels in Mexico, Colombia and Vietnam, has previously warned that footballers taking cocaine, ice and ecstasy are ­vulnerable to bikies and organised criminals who either sold them the drugs, or saw them taking them.

The AFL claims its illicit drugs policy puts players’ welfare first, but sources insist the opposite was true in Balic’s case.

In July 2017, Fremantle announced that Balic had been granted “indefinite leave” by the club after “injuring his hamstring at training”, subsequent to another leave of absence for a “personal issue”.

Mr Wilkie attempted to table Dr Arain’s statement in federal parliament last month as he accused the AFL of perpetrating a fraud on the public in a bombshell speech.

Balic, a star junior from Melbourne’s bayside region, was drafted by Fremantle with pick 38 in the 2015 national draft and played four games for the Dockers in 2017 before being traded to Melbourne.

He was delisted by the Demons after just one season without registering a senior game for the club.

Travis Tygart, the head of America’s anti-doping agency, USADA, last week described the AFL’s drug-testing policy as “incredibly ill-informed” and reeking “of nefarious behaviour”.

Originally published as Harley Balic’s father Eddie slams AFL drugs secrecy amid Sport Integrity Australia probe