FORMER Bombers president David Evans and ex-AFL boss Andrew Demetriou are to blame for the enduring agony being suffered by the Essendon 34, James Hird’s lawyer declared.

Steven Amendola — Hird’s solicitor in the drugs stoush since April 2013 — told the Herald Sun the saga had dragged into a third AFL season — and probably a fourth — because of the AFL’s scheming in the embryonic days of the investigation.

“This process has unfolded because of the AFL’s botched attempt to manufacture an outcome that punished the club and its staff on the assurance that the players would be all right,” Amendola said.

“That assurance was hollow and David Evans swallowed it hook, line and sinker when it is clear he should not have been involved in any such decisions given his relationship with Andrew Demetriou.

“He was hopelessly conflicted.

“He should not have been making these decisions ... and in doing so he put the club’s neck in a noose leaving it defenceless in the face of the constant deliberately damaging leaking that occurred.”

Amendola was responding to claims that Evans’s replacement, Paul Little, was wrong to declare war on the AFL and partly responsible for the fiasco.

Evans, who has never spoken publicly about his role in the scandal, quit the Essendon presidency in July 2013 just days after revelations he had been “tipped off” by Demetriou about the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority drugs investigation.

Amendola said “Evans seemed to have been assured” that if Essendon followed Demetriou’s plan the players would escape prosecution.

“The AFL were never able to deliver on such assurances and by virtue of the way the AFL orchestrated the unfolding of the saga, ASADA pursued a prosecution of the 34 players.

“The players were not all right. They are still not all right and the saga will continue into 2016.”

A World Anti-Doping Agency appeal in the case against 34 former and current Bombers will begin later this year.

Amendola believes the saga would have ended long ago if not for the AFL’s interference.

“Imagine an approach by the club which said we will let ASADA conduct an investigation on its own,” Amendola said.

“Imagine if there was no Interim Report prepared to suit the needs of the AFL which was leaked to all and sundry.

“Imagine if the AFL conducted its own inquiry focused on governance issues.

“Imagine if Essendon had commissioned an internal review which was not provided to the AFL and upon which the club acted internally.

“Imagine if David Evans had acted in the interests of the club, and the AFL, like the NRL, had just let the ASADA investigation take its course.

“Imagine if there hadn’t been trial, conviction and hanging by sections of the hysterical media as a result of all the leaking. Just imagine.”