Essendon players are ‘scarred for life’ because of the supplements saga

Brendon Goddard has slammed the way in which the Essendon drug scandal was handled saying “men have been destroyed” by the mental toll of the saga.

Goddard has lifted the lid on the mental anguish of the supplements scandal.

The infamous Essendon supplement saga “destroyed” and “scarred for life” a number of bombers former club captain Brendon Goddard says.

After self-reporting over the supplement program run by Stephen Dank in the 2012 season, the Bombers were first fined $2 million by the AFL, barred from playing finals and then senior coach James Hird was suspended.

The second part of the investigation resulted in 34 past and present Essendon players being issued with show cause notices by ASADA alleging the use of Thymosin Beta-4 during the 2012 campaign - with them eventually receiving two-year bans in 2016 after a case that went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Goddard, who joined Essendon from St Kilda at the end of 2012, told SEN’s This is Your Sporting Life the saga and the toll from it “destroyed a number of men”.

“We know about Hirdy (James Hird) and his struggles, but there’s some guys out there that were fighting at the time and it probably had a long term effect on them mentally that we probably didn’t know about,” he said.

Hird and Goddard in 2013

“Because they were hiding it and didn’t want to talk about it.

“It had a huge impact. Don’t worry about the footy club, the footy will bounce back because of the supporters and its rich history of success, but a lot of the individuals that were involved have been scarred for life.”

Goddard was the captain of Essendon for the 2016 season that the 34 players had to sit out.

He said the investigation was too drawn out and should have been completed quicker.

“It’s staggering when you go back and think about what happened at the time and how long it dragged out,” he said.

“It is hard to identify a lot of those things when you are in the moment and what was going on because things were happening so quick and you couldn’t stop and gather your thoughts.”

It is still vigorously debated whether the Essendon players should have received such harsh penalties, or received any at all, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded they were repeatedly injected with Thymosin Beta-4.

Brendon Goddard of the Bombers is chaired off after his last match

Last year the Herald Sun revealed an official log showed ASADA’s “Check Your Substances” site — which athletes and coaches are encouraged to inspect prior to using supplements — did not flag the drug as banned until the afternoon of February 4, 2013.

The status update came on the same day AFL boss Andrew Demetriou called Essendon chairman David Evans about a secret investigation into the club’s supplements program, prompting the Bombers to “self-report” to ASADA.

ASADA responded to this by saying the timing of the logging of the drug on its former checking tool known as Check Your Substance was irrelevant and Thymosin Beta-4 has “never been approved for human use”.

Goddard retired at the end of 2018 after six seasons at the Bombers.

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