Then and now: why after 15 months has the AFL's outgoing boss and the former WADA president changed their tune on an infamous press conference? Tracey Holmes revisits her 2013 analysis and asks: what has changed?

The two loudest voices following the "blackest day in Australian sport" press conference, that damned this nation's athletes with a single swipe, belonged to outgoing AFL boss, Andrew Demetriou, and former WADA president and Liberal premier of NSW, John Fahey.

It was somewhat surprising then that at the Sport Australia "Integrity in Sport Forum" held in Melbourne on Tuesday they performed a joint backflip worthy of praise normally reserved for athletes in Cirque du Soleil.

Not once in the 15 months since the announcement had Demetriou or Fahey criticised the "publicity stunt". In fact, quite the opposite.

Now Demetriou is describing it as "really damaging" and Fahey, suspecting the announcement was politically motivated, said: "I never saw any justification for that public announcement."

Interesting he should bring politics into it at a time when the current Liberal Government is desperate to win favour with an electorate quickly losing confidence in its leadership.

It may be worth revisiting The Drum article I wrote on February 8, 2013:

Outrage on steroids: our obsession with drugs in sport I never thought I'd be guilty of channelling Australia's former prime minister, Kevin Rudd but would everybody please take a long, cold shower. The release of the Australian Crime Commission's (ACC) report "Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport" states: "Multiple players across some sporting codes and specific clubs within those codes are suspected of currently using or having previously used peptides, which could constitute an anti-doping rule violation." Some... suspected... could constitute. This is not the language of cold, hard facts that warrant a cry from Chicken Little that the sky is falling down. With the help of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), the ACC undertook a year-long "project to consider the extent of use of PIEDs (performance and image enhancing drugs) by professional athletes, the size of this market and the extent of organised criminal involvement". A worthy project. The integrity of sport in Australia is now under threat, according to the report, due to four key issues: Organised criminal infiltration of unregulated markets;

Organised criminal infiltration of unregulated markets; Infiltration through legitimate businesses, contractors and consultants;

Infiltration through legitimate businesses, contractors and consultants; Illicit drug use; and

Illicit drug use; and Criminal associations differing levels of integrity oversight in professional sport in Australia. Issues certainly warranting continued investigation and recommendations. But here is where the problem lies in yesterday's over-staged, over-hyped press conference that was nothing more than a manipulation of Australia's somewhat unrealistic love affair with sport. In the reports own words, "the PIEDs market does not rival the established markets for methyl amphetamine, cocaine or heroin in terms of the risk and harms they pose to the Australian community", so why are we all worked up into such a lather about it? Why did we need a who's who of sporting officialdom lined up on a stage like a bunch of High Court judges delivering a very serious verdict which threatens to alter our lives irrevocably? Those who work in the underfunded and under-represented fields of drug/alcohol/gambling abuse in mainstream Australia would love the promise of doubled funding and greater powers that ASADA today received on the back of a fairly narrow and limited "project". Let's be honest, if you want more funding today's example of how to achieve it is straight out of the PR practitioner's handbook. The ACC was not shying away from the fact that the real power lies in Australia's obsession with sport and its belief that it is fair and played with integrity. As the report claims, this has "enduring significance", particularly when it comes to PR, headlines and outrage. So much outrage that the Government deems it necessary to increase funding to catch the cheats that drug agencies worldwide have found pretty difficult to do. Without the admissions of fallen heroes like Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong and co. we may still be wandering around blindly believing sport, unlike everything else in life, is pure. Our Garden of Eden view of sport is seriously flawed. Yesterday's announcement is neither shocking nor unexpected. Why do we still continue to believe that it is somehow different here to everywhere else in the world? Australia's Olympic boss, John Coates, congratulated the Government's get-tough stance, claiming "we now have the powers to properly investigate doping and match fixing". Surely the pre-existing powers were also designed to catch cheats or is this an admission that the policy is wrong and it's rarely worked? Australian Olympians are banned from betting on their sports, as are footballers and jockeys. Yes horse racing, another great Australian passion, is a sport designed purely for gambling. And football teams worldwide are now sponsored by the very agencies they are banned from frequenting. But the rest of us can bet on their performances. John Coates can. Once again, we are pushing into a corner a group of young Australians called athletes. We idolise them and demonise them in equal measure. They are discouraged from drinking, taking drugs (either socially or to rid themselves of pain), gambling and generally living the Australian lifestyle. When they fail to live up to expectations that most of us would never subscribe to, we vilify them. Every athlete in Australia today will be feeling the wrath of the sports loving public who will now look at all of them with a degree of suspicion. Are they guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs? Have they been guilty of throwing a match? Most of them have not and would not but they are becoming society's other class - used by their sports like pawns on a chess board, abused by a system that has failed to regulate itself and now looked down upon as a potential bunch of cheats failing 'Australia's sporting integrity'. If we are totally honest, how can sport not be untainted by chemists who dodge the system and criminal gangs who launder money? Sport is a multi-billion dollar business. The International Herald Tribune reports that $3 billion a day is gambled on sport. Media organisations pay huge fees for the right to broadcast sport and they, like the athletes, are sponsored by betting agencies. It is in the interest of sponsors, media and clubs to win since in the end, this is not a community sport-for-all program we are talking about. It is a professional, profit driven industry. It's not the athletes we should be focussed on but the management of sport itself and the lack of outside scrutiny shone on it. While we remain focussed on the men and women at the bottom of the sports heap we will never be asking the right questions of the puppet masters behind the administrative curtain who are pulling all the strings.

...so 15 months later, where are we?

Essendon was fined $2 million, suspended from the AFL finals series and the coach stood down for a year with no findings yet of doping violations or the involvement of crime.

The Cronulla Sharks were fined $1 million by the NRL, had their coach suspended for 12 months and banned their physical trainer for two years - although evidence of doping violations or criminal involvement has so far not been established.

Former rugby league player Sandor Earl floats in limbo in Thailand still waiting on a hearing nine months on from his "admission" without a formal hearing.

ASADA is yet to issue any infraction notices.

Speaking to me on ABC News Radio, the chairman of the Cronulla Sharks, Damien Keogh, said:

If ASADA actually puts their hand up now and says, "Hey, listen, we've done all this investigation and we haven't got conclusive proof of anything illegal" ... then I think they expose themselves for potential legal action and this is where this is all heading ... it's lawyers at 40 paces.

Yesterday's comments by Fahey and Demetriou raise several questions:

Why is it an issue now, but it wasn't then? Why the shift in rhetoric? What of the clubs, players and coaches whose lives have been irrevocably damaged through public trials without evidence?

Given what's gone before don't expect any answers soon.

Tracey Holmes has focussed her career in journalism on sport and its wider implications. View her full profile here.