Shintemaster is right. You don't speak for me either.
The players are not victims. They are personally responsible for every substance that goes into their bodies. If they choose to rely on what their club tells them, and not make their own independent inquiries, then that is a choice they make and a risk they take.
Nor could they say they didn't know that. Everyone knows that. The AFL runs education courses for the players about PED's and players' obligations and responsibilities.
They may have been dumb, naive, stupid and trusting, but they were not victims.
They have also been quite happy to have an each way bet throughout this saga. Hide behind club officials, wailing parents, the AFLPA...let everyone else do the heavy lifting for them. They were quite content to be represented in the Federal Court hearing, as an attempt to support *'s pitiful attempt to get the investigation quashed while at the same time not bringing their own court case and thereby jeopardising their ability down the track to cry victim and try and negotiate reduced sentences. It's a quite deliberate play on their part and any sympathy I might have had for the players (which was minimal to begin with) ended right there and then.
The players can go suck a fart. I don't know whether or not they took (note - not "given", but "took") PED's, and if they didn't then they didn't and that's fine. I suspect they did, but the case has a fair way to go and let's see how it plays out. What I do hope is that if it is found that they took PED's, then there is no lenience. No reduced bans for "providing assistance", cos they haven't assisted at all. No backdated bans due to the length of the investigation, cos it ain't ASADA's fault that * left such a dog's breakfast behind that ASADA has had a ******* difficult job trying to figure out what actually happened. Just bans that are appropriate and consistent with every other athlete found to have taken similar substances.