News Jnr Rioli - He’s back.

[The wily weagle]

I don't think people still quite grasp the severity of someone tampering with a urine sample via WADA testing

At this point, any ban under 2 years will be a win

Don't be at all surprised if ASADA push for 4 years to try and make an example of him

 

[DJMac]

Im not saying he refused, im saying future players with drugs in their system could front an ASADA rep, say "I cant pee and feel frustrated with your attempts to make me do so", tip a bottle of liquid in the tube and call it a day. Presumably the tester walks away, player gets called in front of a tribunal, what happens? He didnt test positive for drugs, he just "got frustrated" and didnt provide a proper sample. Obvious answer is he gets suspended and told to test again, where miraculously he is clean. To a lot of guys that may be the better outcome than getting caught with PEDs or coke in their system.

The fact that Willie also provided clean samples is irrelevant to the arguement. What he did could open the AFL up to a clusterf*ck of problems if it goes unpunished. He is a silly boy, and if he wasnt one of ours we would all probably be saying 12 months + is fair.

My main point is we don’t know what happened yet. If he refusedI agree. If it happened as per my hypothetical I would say that the official should have just cleaned the beaker and said we have all day.

 

[ZergMinion]

I don't think people still quite grasp the severity of someone tampering with a urine sample via WADA testing

At this point, any ban under 2 years will be a win

Don't be at all surprised if ASADA push for 4 years to try and make an example of him

Yup. Willie is definitely boned.

 

[EagleEgo]

There was an article in the West Australian yesterday about Rioli getting an 18 month suspension as the most likely outcome. Can anyone paste the article in here, as it is behind a paywall? If not, can someone share the general thrust of the article?

The person who wrote the article must be a member of this Bigfooty site and simply copy and paste some of the paragraphies from you guys.

 

[Bacchus]

There was an article in the West Australian yesterday about Rioli getting an 18 month suspension as the most likely outcome. Can anyone paste the article in here, as it is behind a paywall? If not, can someone share the general thrust of the article?

Not a lot in the article as is the general case with the West Australian.Essentially saying that 18 months is a compromise penalty which might satisfy all parties. If the AFL tribunal which determines the initial penalty, comes up with something too short then WADA will come in over the top of them as they did with Essendon. Duffield, the author of the article has come down from 4 years to 18 months which is a big reduction.
The West Australian seems to me to be mounting a bit of a campaign in Willie's favour which is surprising but encouraging. They published an article quoting Wayne Carey who said the AFL should break with WADA and one today one quoting the world body of athletes who think the penalties are too harsh and inflexible and are ruining lives. If Willie gets years this will create an incredible stink which will be ongoing. Lots of parties coming out and speaking in his favour. I would hope to see him playing next year. He did something foolish and inappropriate but he's not a drug cheat. The option of the AFL leaving WADA seems like an open one, the World drug body is a poor fit with shockingly harsh mandatory penalties, I tentatively agree with Carey without knowing all the ramifications.

 

[EagleEgo]

Not a lot in the article as is the general case with the West Australian.Essentially saying that 18 months is a compromise penalty which might satisfy all parties. If the AFL tribunal which determines the initial penalty, comes up with something too short then WADA will come in over the top of them as they did with Essendon. Duffield, the author of the article has come down from 4 years to 18 months which is a big reduction.
The West Australian seems to me to be mounting a bit of a campaign in Willie's favour which is surprising but encouraging. They published an article quoting Wayne Carey who said the AFL should break with WADA and one today one quoting the world body of athletes who think the penalties are too harsh and inflexible and are ruining lives. If Willie gets years this will create an incredible stink which will be ongoing. Lots of parties coming out and speaking in his favour. I would hope to see him playing next year. He did something foolish and inappropriate but he's not a drug cheat. The option of the AFL leaving WADA seems like an open one, the World drug body is a poor fit with shockingly harsh mandatory penalties, I tentatively agree with Carey without knowing all the ramifications.

Why WADA is involved? AFL is not a world sports. Should it be ASADA instead?

 

[Bacchus]

Why WADA is involved? AFL is not a world sports. Should it be ASADA instead?

I don't fully understand the connections either. ASADA is the Australian sub branch of WADA. I don't like them much, seem to have a lot of power drunk individuals like Richard Ings who are actually nobodies. They are there to catch systematic cheats like the East Germans and Chinese and Russians which they are appallingly bad at and then come down on little fish like Willie like a tonne of bricks.

 

[Chris_6678]

There has been some talk how the way WADA hands out their bans to other sports caters for the Olympics where they compete on a large scale every 4 years and they should should scale the penalty down for a sport played 22-25 times a year.

 

[Capriati]

Not a lot in the article as is the general case with the West Australian.Essentially saying that 18 months is a compromise penalty which might satisfy all parties. If the AFL tribunal which determines the initial penalty, comes up with something too short then WADA will come in over the top of them as they did with Essendon. Duffield, the author of the article has come down from 4 years to 18 months which is a big reduction.
The West Australian seems to me to be mounting a bit of a campaign in Willie's favour which is surprising but encouraging. They published an article quoting Wayne Carey who said the AFL should break with WADA and one today one quoting the world body of athletes who think the penalties are too harsh and inflexible and are ruining lives. If Willie gets years this will create an incredible stink which will be ongoing. Lots of parties coming out and speaking in his favour. I would hope to see him playing next year. He did something foolish and inappropriate but he's not a drug cheat. The option of the AFL leaving WADA seems like an open one, the World drug body is a poor fit with shockingly harsh mandatory penalties, I tentatively agree with Carey without knowing all the ramifications.

Severing ties with ASADA would probably mean losing millions and millions of dollars in government grants. Having a national league not signed up to the WADA code would also be a huge hit to the prestige of the competition and how the AFL and its athletes are viewed by the public.

I tend to agree with most of those points in the article. ASADA/AFL don't want to be giving an overly punitive punishment if Willie can somehow prove he is a clean athlete.

I ******* hate this, but Willie needs to take his medicine. At the very least he was negligent and ignorant of his obligations as an elite athlete. Some form of suspension is warranted. Anything between 6-18 months would probably be a win for Willie and WCE.

Missing one season due to a doping infraction, whether we are talking about Willie or EFC 35 is not overly punitive and not career destroying.

18 months for Willie is fair and reasonable. Reduction from max 4 years to max 2 years if we can prove it wasn't with the intention of cheating. Then knock six months of for early admission/degree of fault.

I did see some article that had a source that believed by time Willie's hearing comes up mid next year, WCE would argue that the provisional ban is sufficient punishment. That would put the suspension anywhere between 6-9months. I am not sure if that is long enough in the eyes of the public.

 

[JohnW]

Im not saying he refused, im saying future players with drugs in their system could front an ASADA rep, say "I cant pee and feel frustrated with your attempts to make me do so", tip a bottle of liquid in the tube and call it a day. Presumably the tester walks away, player gets called in front of a tribunal, what happens? He didnt test positive for drugs, he just "got frustrated" and didnt provide a proper sample. Obvious answer is he gets suspended and told to test again, where miraculously he is clean. To a lot of guys that may be the better outcome than getting caught with PEDs or coke in their system.

The fact that Willie also provided clean samples is irrelevant to the arguement. What he did could open the AFL up to a clusterf*ck of problems if it goes unpunished. He is a silly boy, and if he wasnt one of ours we would all probably be saying 12 months + is fair.

How can a clean test at the same time be totally disregarded.

Surely in your example the players gets the book thrown at him. But common sense would suggest it is super harsh to do the same to someone who provided a second test that was clean at around the same time?

Now if they suggest Willie did this in a way to avoid being detected for drugs and can prove it then smack him hard.

But the spirit of the rule is to catch drug cheats and to stop guys avoiding tests to do so. Which isn't exactly what happened in this case, if the reports of subsequent tests around the same time frame coming back clean.

I can't believe their code is written in such a way that the intent is totally disregard the entire context of the situation.

 

[Bacchus]

Severing ties with ASADA would probably mean losing millions and millions of dollars in government grants. Having a national league not signed up to the WADA code would also be a huge hit to the prestige of the competition and how the AFL and its athletes are viewed by the public.

I tend to agree with most of those points in the article. ASADA/AFL don't want to be giving an overly punitive punishment if Willie can somehow prove he is a clean athlete.

I ******* hate this, but Willie needs to take his medicine. At the very least he was negligent and ignorant of his obligations as an elite athlete. Some form of suspension is warranted. Anything between 6-18 months would probably be a win for Willie and WCE.

Missing one season due to a doping infraction, whether we are talking about Willie or EFC 35 is not overly punitive and not career destroying.

18 months for Willie is fair and reasonable. Reduction from max 4 years to max 2 years if we can prove it wasn't with the intention of cheating. Then knock six months of for early admission/degree of fault.

I did see some article that had a source that believed by time Willie's hearing comes up mid next year, WCE would argue that the provisional ban is sufficient punishment. That would put the suspension anywhere between 6-9months. I am not sure if that is long enough in the eyes of the public.

I don't think it's the public that needs convincing. Willie was silly not cheating. Most fair minded people can see this. Penalties in terms of years would be manifestly unjust. Like slapping $20,000 on someone for a first time speeding offence. Totally inappropriate and more immoral than not pissing into a cup after trying for hours. These anti doping organisations are a blight and out of control.

 

[Capriati]

I don't think it's the public that needs convincing. Willie was silly not cheating. Most fair minded people can see this. Penalties in terms of years would be manifestly unjust. Like slapping $20,000 on someone for a first time speeding offence. Totally inappropriate.

If public believes that he got off too lightly they will hound him out of the game. Perception around how WC and the AFL deal with this issue is extremely important.

Being naive doesn't waive an infraction from ASADA. Intent will be taken in to account when determining the length of his suspension, but that still places the suspension as being anywhere up to two years.

 

[Spider Klein]

We really need to consider 18 months backdated a win.

Misses 2020 and maybe some preseason but back for 2021.

And it shouldn't be considered lenient, A whole season and a finals campaign effectively when he missed semi. Thats more than every Essendon player got

edit: Actually the same as Essendon seems they got removed from the 2013 finals series.

 

[Balls In]

Sorry but I can't see how 18 months is a win. When you consider the lenient penalties in the AFL for a raft of indescressions 18 months is an appalling outlier. Duffield was also wrong to tie this up with Olympic and international athletes as AFL isn't even an international sport. Throwing the book at Willie has zero influence on cheats in other countries.

 

[The Dodger]

Haven't Collingwood and Stephenson (Coincidentally) used up the AFL quirk quota for 2019?

Well they found one for the Bont to still be a chance for the Brownlow...but alas Willie isnt a chance of a Brownlow and I doubt ASADA will let the AFL just have a chat with the Eagles to negotiate any punishment. So its a Hail Mary quirk we are after.

 

[Makka]

In my opinion I'm hoping for a 12 - 18 month suspension backdated to when he was first suspended, as long as he didn't test positive to anything else which seems to be agreed upon. I fear if they went 6 months then WADA would step in and he'd get a lot worse. But we still don't know all the facts to what actually happened when he poured the drink in.

 

[RookiePick]

The strange thing is that Willie must not have thought there was any issue. Maybe he has supplied a proper urine sample, directly after "joking" around with the first one.

This is about the only plausible scenario I can think of where he has messed with a sample but the second sample means something and he has a chance to get off with some sort of much reduced punishment.

If it is a belated blood test or no second sample at all he would be looking at the full 4 years I fear.

 

[frenchconnection]

Not a lot in the article as is the general case with the West Australian.Essentially saying that 18 months is a compromise penalty which might satisfy all parties. If the AFL tribunal which determines the initial penalty, comes up with something too short then WADA will come in over the top of them as they did with Essendon. Duffield, the author of the article has come down from 4 years to 18 months which is a big reduction.
The West Australian seems to me to be mounting a bit of a campaign in Willie's favour which is surprising but encouraging. They published an article quoting Wayne Carey who said the AFL should break with WADA and one today one quoting the world body of athletes who think the penalties are too harsh and inflexible and are ruining lives. If Willie gets years this will create an incredible stink which will be ongoing. Lots of parties coming out and speaking in his favour. I would hope to see him playing next year. He did something foolish and inappropriate but he's not a drug cheat. The option of the AFL leaving WADA seems like an open one, the World drug body is a poor fit with shockingly harsh mandatory penalties, I tentatively agree with Carey without knowing all the ramifications.

IMO an Independent body or even the legal system should be able to investigate cases like this. I agree with Carey that the AFL should leave the agreement with ASADA/WADA as don't really think it suits the football codes as more related to Olympians seeing they only compete every 4 years.

Can Willy's legal representation appeal the sentence handed out if they feel it's too severe? And who will be the governing body at the Appeal?

 

[Scotland]

When looking at any suspension you have to remember that the incident occurred in August. However many years from August makes him available for selection for finals (though not likely to be picked) the year the ban ends. The AFL allowed it with Stephenson but do they really want "return of drug cheat" dominating the build up to their cash cow finals series? Doubt it.

In an AFL context the only ban that really matters is March to September. If Rioli was banned for 6 months and officially rejoined training in February it would be no real punishment whatsoever beyond missing the Geelong semi final. It's like punching someone in a GF then being banned for 10 weeks over pre-season but free to play Rd 1. Wet lettuce leaf.

6 months - next to nothing, plays Rd 1 2020
12 months - back for 2020 finals, maybe
18 months - back for 2021 Rd 1
24 months - most likely not back until 2022 Rd 1 effectively making it a 30 month penalty
2+ years - probably not back at all

I still think the AFL will try and manipulate an 18 month penalty.

 

[Capriati]

IMO an Independent body or even the legal system should be able to investigate cases like this.

Can Willy's legal representation appeal the sentence handed out if they feel it's too severe? And who will be the governing body at the Appeal?

Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and if that fails, they can appeal the CAS hearing to the Swiss Supreme Court as Essendon did.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Sorry but I can't see how 18 months is a win. When you consider the lenient penalties in the AFL for a raft of indescressions 18 months is an appalling outlier. Duffield was also wrong to tie this up with Olympic and international athletes as AFL isn't even an international sport. Throwing the book at Willie has zero influence on cheats in other countries.

Penalizing an athlete for failing to provide actual urine for a urine test will have zero influence on athletes in other sports in other countries who might consider not providing urine for their regular urine tests under the same testing regime?

 

[Balls In]

Penalizing an athlete for failing to provide actual urine for a urine test will have zero influence on athletes in other sports in other countries who might consider not providing urine for their regular urine tests under the same testing regime?

News of Willies harsh treatment under this regime will be broadcast all over the world?

 

[Brave Sir Robin]

News of Willies harsh treatment under this regime will be broadcast all over the world?

No, but if you were the legal counsel for somebody accused of tampering with a sample it'd be an easy precedent to find.

 

[Spider Klein]

The max 4 years I see as in there due to the nature of Olympics being every 4 years. This gives them the power to extend a ban if they deem it fit from any time to include an olympics.

Our sport is in 1 year cycles, not 4 so would say a season out of the game is quite adequate. 18 months backdated does this. More imo would be a penalty to a footballer that far outweighs that of an olympian.

It may differ in some sports that have other regular major meets and events but for some sports the only time they are on the world show is at the Olympics.

 

[squashface]

From all the information that has come out (whether or not any of it is true is another question) I think that Rioli should miss the entire 2020 season including finals so whatever that ban is (backdated to his provisional suspension) would be the fair result. Anything more would be excessive given he didn't actually take anything prohibited.