Ablett legal team gears up for fight with AFL

Gary Ablett Sr’s lawyer says her client’s past drug abuse can’t be linked to his brain damage.

Gary Ablett Sr, centre, with son Gary Jr, right, and Joel Selwood Picture: Instagram

The lawyer for Gary Ablett Sr expects the AFL will raise the mercurial footballer’s history of drug abuse in his legal fight for compensation for brain damage.

But Michel Margalit who is representing not only Ablett Sr but also leading a class action of more than 60 footballers against the AFL, says a scan shows that the star’s brain damage is caused by “head strikes” and concussions, not drug abuse.

Margalit added there was “very much” an argument to say the 61-year-old’s behavioural “problems” had arisen because of the football -elated brain trauma he suffered in the infancy of his football career.

“Certainly the defendants will raise this as an issue but the pathology of these types of injuries, the actual concussion-related injuries, shows up differently so we are not concerned in respect to being able to show the actual damage suffered as a result of head strikes as opposed to a claim that any problems that he has are related to those separate issues,” Margalit told ABC Radio National on Tuesday morning.

“And further to that the head strikes and concussions occurred very, very early on in his life, and there (is) very much an argument to say that so many problems have arisen due to the concussions and the related injuries.”

In a 2007 interview with News Corp the 248-game veteran said he turned to drugs because of a lifelong battle with depression.

“It got to a point where I was so desperate to relieve it I started to experiment with drugs,” he said.

“I started using cocaine thinking it was the answer, and for the first time in a long time I wasn’t depressed. So I continued to use cocaine and then ecstasy, not realising how destructive it was until later on.”

Late on Monday it was announced that Ablett is suing the league, and the Geelong and Hawthorn football clubs for negligence.

Ablett told the Herald Sun last month that he estimated he had been knocked out cold “eight to 10 times” during his career and had experienced “dozens” of concussion-like symptoms.

Margalit said Ablett’s brain scan had shown “functional and structural damage to his brain”, and it was very clear that it had been caused by strikes to the head that the superstar had suffered.

Ablett told the Herald Sun that he had suffered greatly because of the brain trauma from football.

“I began getting headaches and pressure in the top of my skull around 2010, initially a few days a week,” he said last month. “It then led to depression, anxiety and extreme fatigue. Under the advice of doctors, I then had numerous scans to try and find the cause of headaches and skull pressure.”

The AFL released a statement to The Australian on Tuesday in response to the Ablett Sr claims. It said it had not been served.

“In regard to the media reports overnight and today from a law firm on a claim brought by former player Gary Ablett Sr, the AFL has seen the media reports of the firm’s comments but as of 2.00pm today the AFL still had not been served with the claim documents,” the statement reads.

The AFL maintained it was doing all it could to protect current players and was working towards expanding an injury and hardship fund for former AFL players.

“The health and safety of players at all levels of the game is the AFL’s key priority and the AFL takes concussion and the protection of the brain health of all those playing our game extremely seriously,” the statement reads.

“The AFL has made more than 30 changes to tribunal guidelines and on-field rules over the past two decades to further protect the head, and annually updates the concussion guidelines to improve the response to head knocks in our game in accordance with current and evolving science.

“The AFL has a team of people specifically working on brain health initiatives, with further appointments to shortly be made, and we continue to strengthen protocols and the education of clubs and players as to why this issue is taken so seriously.

“The AFL has been working for a year towards an expanded injury and hardship fund to provide increased financial and other assistance to those former players who suffered a serious injury in the course of their AFL or AFLW ­careers who are in need, on top of the existing assistance ... available under the current CBA-funded Injury & Hardship Fund which the AFLPA administers.”