FORMER Essendon coach Mark Thompson believes he was the victim of a smear campaign at the time he was a candidate for the vacant Gold Coast Suns job.

Thompson revealed he was aware of rumours circling the football world last October that was battling an illicit drugs problem.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about it and it’s funny how you go from the top of the ladder to the bottom of the ladder pretty quickly,” Thompson told 3AW.

“That’s just footy. It hurts a little bit but I’ve just got to accept it and just get on with it and try and do the right thing and work my way back into the system if that’s what I want to do.”

Asked if he had suspicions about where the rumours started, Thompson said: “I pretty much have, yeah. But there’s no point in letting people know, otherwise you’re just playing their game and I don’t really want to play their game.

“They can do whatever they want to me … over the last 10 or 15 years there’s been that many personal things said against me that you just get this exterior that nothing can actually break you.

“Nothing is going to break me.

“I don’t care what people say, if you look at yourself in the mirror every morning and you’re happy with the guy you’re seeing … you just get on and live your life.”

Pressed on whether the rumours were linked to his strong stance on the Essendon drugs saga,” Thompson said: “You just don’t know where your opposition is at any stage, especially in something as big as what we were going on with. We were accused of a lot of things at Essendon, and I was personally, and certainly tried to defend myself and our position.

“Some people have said some horrible things over the time that clearly aren’t right.”

Thompson said the truth about Essendon’s 2012 supplements program was still not known.

“I know we’ll probably never get it, but the truth would be nice,” Thompson said.

“They (the AFL and ASADA) should have actually asked what happened and actually worked with us and found out exactly what happened, because that’s all you want isn’t it? You want the truth and I would like the truth too.

“I think the players would like the truth and the public would like the truth. But we’ve gone a long way around the truth trying to cover things up.”

He said the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority interim report had been “got to by people to make it look worse ... and easier to get the (Essendon) staff”.

“I knew their case for Thymosin (Beta-4) wasn’t strong because there is no proof of it anywhere. There is no proof of it landing at Essendon or Essendon paying for it,” he said.

Asked about Essendon’s governance failings, Thompson said: “Do you know who is the most responsible for governance? The AFL. Second is the Essendon board.

“When you are talking about law and governance it’s the boards. It’s a triparte agreement between the AFL, Essendon and the players.”