The AFL won’t tell the club with a suspected performance-enhancing drug user that they’ve been named in the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) investigation despite being given permission to do so.
The ACC on Monday said it had granted both the AFL and NRL permission to notify specific clubs that were identified in Project Aperio, the 12-month investigation into drugs in sport.
However, the leagues have not been cleared to tell the clubs the specific reasons they have been identified.
This means that while the AFL could inform the club involved that it was identified by the ACC, the league can not tell the club it has a player suspected of having used performance-enhancing drugs.
There are only two AFL clubs identified in relation to suspected performance-enhancing drug use.
Essendon is one, with the Bombers under investigation to determine whether several of their players took performance-enhancing drugs, possibly without knowledge they were doing so.
The other club, whose identity is known to the AFL, has just one player suspected of performance-enhancing drug use, although the league doesn’t know the name of the player or even whether he is still on the club’s list.
Several other AFL clubs – reportedly as many as nine, although the league won’t confirm that number – have been identified in the investigation as being vulnerable to illicit drug use.
An AFL spokesman said the league did not plan to specifically inform the clubs identified in the ACC investigation.
The spokesman said all clubs had already been told by Victorian and federal police at the AFL’s recent drugs summit that they were vulnerable to illicit drugs.
The AFL can only tell clubs they have been identified in the investigation as vulnerable to prohibited drugs – which could include either illicit or performance-enhancing drugs.
Given they have already warned all clubs on the illicit drugs front, they won’t be informing specific clubs that they were identified in the report, the spokesman said.
“No, because we have already said in terms of illicit drugs that’s an issue for our entire competition,” the AFL spokesman told AAP.
“When we had a meeting on illicit drugs, we had federal police and Victorian police tell clubs that was an issue so the entire competition has been briefed on that.
“We are not allowed to break down individually what a club is mentioned in the report for.”
But AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou earlier said the league would like to be able to inform the club which has one suspected performance-enhancing drug user of that fact.
“Yes and we’ll be seeking that clarification from the Australian Crime Commission,” Demetriou told reporters.
