The Australian Football League (AFL) will allow Essendon to field temporary players during the pre-season 2015 National Australia Bank (NAB) Challenge. A number of the club’s players were suspended in November 2014 while being investigated for alleged breaches of AFL anti-doping rules in 2012, and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) has said that they would risk losing their entitlement to a backdated ban should they compete ahead of being sanctioned. The AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, which is investigating allegations that 32 past and present players used banned supplements, concluded today, but will reportedly need at least a month to make a decision on whether the players will be charged with breaching AFL rules. Hearings to sanction players are expected at a later date.

‘The Essendon Football Club will be allowed to use Players from their VFL [Victoria Football League] list and also use Players from other State League teams to enable them to field a team’, read an AFL statement. ‘The AFL will continue to work with Essendon and the AFLPA to ensure appropriate terms and conditions for the temporary players including minimum payments and provisions for injury, insurance and medical’. Essendon’s first game in the NAB Challenge is against St. Kilda on 7 March, and players have expressed concern that there is a risk of injury if non-AFL players are used against an AFL side.

The AFL Players Association (AFLPA) confirmed Essendon will compete in the NAB Challenge, but that all players from 2012 would sit out the competition, in order to protect the anonymity of the accused. ‘The players understood that there are a number of considerations to be taken into account, first and foremost protecting the identities of the players with infraction notices, whilst enabling the Club to honour its obligations to field a team in the NAB Challenge’, read a statement. ‘The decision by those members of the 2012 list who have not received infraction notices, to withdraw from playing, was seen as essential by all players to protect the anonymity of those with infraction notices’.

ASADA’s view that any players that compete before being sanctioned will forfeit their right to have their suspension backdated could present an issue for Jobe Watson and Dustin Fletcher, if they are on the AFL’s list of players charged with doping offences. Both Essendon players were given permission to play in the International Rules series against Ireland, which took place in November 2014, about a week after the players were suspended.