The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) is providing the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with US$100,000 (€88,200) to assist with its appeal against the Australian Football League (AFL) Anti-Doping Tribunal’s decision to clear 34 current and past Essendon players of doping. It has also provided two lawyers, who will work with WADA for two weeks to brief them on the ASADA case file it handed over to WADA.

“ASADA is supporting WADA with support in kind”, ASADA National Manager, Operations, Trevor Burgess told a budget estimate hearing of the Senate Community Affairs Committee on 2 June 2015. “We have provided two lawyers for a small period of time to brief WADA, and WADA’s legal representatives, to hand over the full brief of evidence. At the moment, that is a couple of weeks work for two senior lawyers. And we have, at this stage, agreed with WADA to contribute a capped amount up to US$50,000.” As this 18 June letter shows, this amount was later amended to $100,000.

On 20 April, ASADA decided to provide its case file to WADA rather than appeal, arguing that any appeal it made would have to remain within the AFL framework. “I am conscious that ASADA does not have a direct right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the only appeal avenue open to ASADA at this time is to the AFL Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal”, said ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt in a 20 April statement. “I am also aware that appealing any of these decisions within the AFL framework would ultimately serve only to delay consideration of these matters by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)”.

Under Article 13.1.3 of the World Anti-Doping Code, WADA has a right to appeal directly to the CAS where ‘no other party has appealed a final decision within the anti-doping organisation’s process […] without having to exhaust other remedies in the anti-doping organisation’s process’. In practical terms, this means that if ASADA had appealed, WADA would have to wait for the outcome before launching its appeal to the CAS.

On 11 May, WADA appealed against the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal decision to clear the Essendon players of breaching anti-doping rules at the CAS. On 31 March, the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal cleared all 34 current and former Essendon players of breaching the AFL Anti-Doping Code. ‘The Tribunal was comfortably satisfied that the substance Thymosin Beta-4 was at the relevant time a prohibited substance under the Code’, read a 31 March statement, which has since been removed from the AFL’s internet site. ‘The Tribunal was not comfortably satisfied that any player was administered Thymosin Beta-4. The Tribunal was not comfortably satisfied that any player violated clause 11.2 of the AFL Anti-Doping Code.’