It is the closest thing we know of to a smoking gun in the Essendon supplements investigation.
So why a letter from long-time Essendon doctor Bruce Reid outlining his concerns about the 2012 supplements program didn’t reach the AFL club’s chairman David Evans is as big a mystery as any substance the Bombers did or didn’t take.
For the first time, Evans admitted that such a letter existed following the release of an abridged version of Ziggy Switkowski’s internal review of club governance.
The letter isn’t mentioned specifically in what was released on Monday.
Evans says that’s because it goes to the heart of the wider AFL-ASADA investigation.
Yet in the subtext, it’s hard to miss.
According to Switkowski, long-time medical staff were seen as yesterday’s men – part of the problem, not the solution. Excessively conventional, pharmacologically illiterate.
The report mentions behaviours of people who may have contravened accepted procedures, fuzzy lines of responsibility in the football department, talk of holding depots where issues were shielded from upper management and the board.
Among Switkowski’s recommendations is that bad news must be passed up the line quickly.
Evans admitted that had not happened as it should.
The man in charge of the club says he saw the Reid letter for the first time in February this year – the weekend before the Bombers went public with their concerns over the supplements program and all hell broke loose.
“We’re confused as to where that letter went. Clearly it didn’t go to who it should’ve,” Evans said on Monday.
“That’s to the core of this (Switkowski) report – that the escalation of issues when they arise should go up the chain.
“It’s clear in this case that didn’t happen … the letter is canvassed in Ziggy’s report.
“It should have been escalated up the tree and it didn’t happen.”
Evans did not say where that letter reached its dead-end, nor when it was allegedly sent.
Again, Evans cited the ongoing AFL-ASADA investigation.
Just what happened to that letter looks key to whom the AFL and ASADA find culpable if Essendon is found to have a case to answer.
In this anti-doping investigation, the deadliest poison may well be in the pen.
