Jeffrey Browne says Jobe Watson should be allowed to keep his 2012 Brownlow Medal

ONE of footy’s most influential legal figures says the AFL must “assert its authority” and allow Jobe Watson to keep his 2012 Brownlow Medal.

2012 Brownlow Medal winner Jobe Watson outside Crown Casino the morning after his Brownlow win.

ONE of footy’s most influential legal figures says the AFL must “assert its authority” and allow Jobe Watson to keep his 2012 Brownlow Medal.

Lawyer turned TV boss Jeffrey Browne said the AFL Commission had the right to “prefer the decision” of its own anti-doping tribunal, which cleared the Essendon players last March, when deciding Watson’s fate next month.

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Browne, an AFL life member, was the league’s senior legal adviser for 21 years, playing a key role in some of the game’s most significant developments, including the formation of the draft, salary cap and illicit drugs code.

He said removing Watson’s name from the Brownlow honour roll because of this month’s Court of Arbitration for Sport’s guilty verdict was “an appalling prospect which just doesn’t cut it in any application of common sense, fairness or the AFL rules”.

“There are two decisions on the liability of the Essendon players — both are different,” Browne said.

“But if any real sense is to surface through this mishmash of allegations and counter-allegations, the AFL Commission must — as it is perfectly entitled to do — prefer the decision of the AFL anti-doping tribunal for the purpose of determining if it should retrospectively interfere in the awarding the game’s highest individual honour.

“The AFL anti-doping tribunal, comprising two eminent former County Court Judges and a former player, delivered a carefully considered decision, arrived at after lengthy submissions by the parties, who were all fully represented.

“It has been suggested that the case before the AFL anti-doping tribunal was botched by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, but that is nothing more than a convenient excuse for those now gunning for Watson.

Jobe Watson was a hugely popular Brownlow winner.

“ASADA confirmed following the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, that the evidence presented before CAS was the same as that before the AFL anti-doping tribunal.

“It is also alleged by ASADA that the AFL body applied the wrong test as to the level of satisfaction it must achieve before reaching a guilty finding, but again that is simply incorrect, the test in both cases being ‘comfortable satisfaction’.”

As a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency drugs code the AFL is required to enforce the 34 suspensions handed down by the CAS, but the results of individual awards, like the Brownlow, are decided at the discretion of the AFL Commission, headed by chairman Mike Fitzpatrick.

Watson has been invited to front the commission on February 15 to argue why he should not be stripped of the Brownlow he won in 2012 — the year CAS declared he and 33 Bombers teammates were administered the banned peptide, thymosin beta-4.

Collingwood football boss Neil Balme last week urged the AFL to walk away from the WADA code.

Two Magpies players, Lachie Keeffe and Josh Thomas, were suspended last season after testing positive to banned performance enhancing drugs.

Browne told the Herald Sun on Monday: “It is clearly open to the AFL Commission to prefer the decision of the AFL anti-doping tribunal to the split decision of the Swiss-based CAS in determining any further consequences beyond the suspension of the 34 players, a result the AFL has to accept having agreed to the WADA code years ago when its reservations and protests about having to do so were drowned out by threats from government to withdraw critical funding for proposed stadia development.

“Jobe Watson has never tested positive to a banned substance and has been cleared by the independent AFL tribunal.

“To strip him of his medal would be the pinnacle of injustice in a regrettable saga where too many errors of judgment have occurred.

“The AFL Commission should assert its authority, over its game, according to its rules and either jettison debate on the topic altogether or confirm Jobe Watson as Brownlow medallist for life.”

Essendon chairman Lindsay Tanner has also declared that Watson should retain his Brownlow, despite being rubbed out for the entire 2016 season.