James Hird's wife Tania reveals details of 'tip-off' phone call to Essendon over supplements scandal

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The wife of suspended Essendon coach James Hird says former Bombers chairman David Evans pressured her husband not to tell anti-doping investigators that AFL boss Andrew Demetriou had "tipped off" the club during the supplements scandal.

Hird was suspended for 12 months last year because he was coach during the club's controversial sports supplements regime.

Now his wife Tania has told the ABC's 7.30 that Hird was made to take the fall despite doing nothing wrong.

"He wasn't found guilty of any breach of the player rules. In the end, it was the threats and the bullying of the AFL to the club and to himself," she told the ABC's 7.30 program.

"I definitely think James was a scapegoat, in fact, we were told that James being the scapegoat was non-negotiable."

We were told prior to the announcement that there was going to be an investigation into the Essendon Football Club involving performance-enhancing drugs or supplements. We were told that at a time that we shouldn't have been told that. Tania Hird

When asked who told her that, she replied: "I'm not at liberty to say."

Essendon had relied on supplements supplied by sports scientist Stephen Dank, and just what was in those injections became the football scandal of the year.

But ASADA's announcement that it was looking into the club was not news in the Hird household.

"We were told prior to the announcement that there was going to be an investigation into the Essendon Football Club involving performance-enhancing drugs or supplements," Ms Hird said.

"We were told that we shouldn't have been told that."

The story that Essendon had been tipped off about the supplements investigation broke last July.

The claim was that Evans spoke to Demetriou in the days before the ASADA announcement, and that straight after that conversation, Mr Evans told Hird.

Mr Demetriou has always strenuously denied tipping Essendon off.

Ms Hird, who describes herself as an assiduous record-keeper, witnessed the events that followed.

"Certainly I heard David Evans say to James on speakerphone - I was taking notes, I take a lot of notes - on July 25, David admitted that he said to James, 'Can you go into ASADA and tell the whole truth, but don't say what Andrew Demetriou told us'," she said.

Asked if she was referring to a "tip-off", she said: "It has been referred to as the tip-off."

She continued: "So James did say, in return, 'If I'm not asked about it, I won't offer it up. But if I'm asked about it, like anything I'm asked about, I will answer it honestly, truthfully, and to the best of my ability."

AFL's top officials behaved like 'cashed-up bogans' says lawyer

In August, Hird was summoned before the AFL Commission to answer charges of bringing the game into disrepute.

Steven Amendola was Hird's lawyer right through the AFL hearing.

"There was a time during that two-day circus that we had on August 26 and 27, where the chairman came out and said 'We're here to hear the matter'. I almost started laughing. Because they had no intention of hearing and determining the matter," Mr Amendola said.

He is scathing of the behaviour of the AFL's most senior officials during that process.

"They looked to behave like a bunch of cashed-up bogans who thought they could do what they wanted," he said.

"[It's] just a complete failure of process. And it fundamentally arises from the Commission structure. You've got a structure where the Commission is the investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury.

"And the idea that they don't think that there's something wrong with that is frankly, astounding."

Demetriou declined to be interviewed by 7.30, but was asked at a press conference earlier this week whether he had any regrets about anything that happened with Hird last year.

"From an AFL perspective we've got no regrets about the process we ran," he said.

"And as I've said many times before, if you are asking me if it's important to protect the welfare of young people, particularly when you are talking about their health and safety, we have no regrets.

"As I've said before, I've never injected anyone and no-one at the AFL has ever injected anyone, I just need to remind you of that."

Demetriou will leave his post at the end of the season, having recently announced his resignation after 11 years at the helm.

But there has been debate over the legacy he is leaving and the culture he has overseen during his tenure.

Kennett: AFL a 'closed circle'

Former Victorian premier and former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has been an outspoken critic of the AFL under Demetriou's leadership.

"In recent times it has become very much a male boys' club," Mr Kennett said.

"It's become a closed circle of individuals protecting themselves against scrutiny. And against transparency."

Lawyer Chris Pollard agrees.

"Matters have to be commercially resolved, swept under the carpet, dealt with quickly so there is no embarrassment to the AFL or perhaps the AFL going to court, and if they did go to court their rules and regulations might not stand up," he said.

Mr Pollard acted for Dean Bailey, the former Melbourne coach who was accused of deliberately losing games in 2009 to get favourable draft picks for the club the following season – the so-called Melbourne tanking affair.

He was dismayed at what happened to his client and says Bailey was warned by someone on behalf of the AFL that there would be consequences for his career if he did not settle the case.

"Threats were made that he probably didn't have a great future in the AFL football industry, and Dean was concerned with that in terms of financially supporting his family," Mr Pollard said.

"He was very concerned about, after it, about his character about being tainted and I say this colloquially, as a cheat, and he was concerned about his future in the AFL industry."

After leaving Melbourne, Bailey was employed by the Adelaide Football Club, but was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer at the end of last year and died last week.

The ABC has spoken to senior club officials, current and past, from around the country, who tell a similar story. All declined to go on camera for fear of repercussions for their clubs or themselves.

The word that was most commonly used to describe their run-ins was bullying.

Mr Kennett recounted one incident which shows the lengths the AFL will go to get its own way.

"As president of Hawthorn, when the AFL was trying to move us out of Tasmania - onto the mainland., and I said 'No, we have a commitment to Tasmania, we have 8,000 members there, we enjoy playing there, we're not going.' And then I was offered a handful of money. Not me personally, but the club," he recalled.

"I think it was $1 million or $2 million a year. They tried to press their point, and when they weren't getting their way, in the end, they just said 'well let's turn around and try and buy you'."

When asked earlier this week about whether he and senior AFL officials had demonstrated good behaviour when dealing with people within the AFL and the game in general, Demetriou replied: "I think so, because I can tell you right now that I sleep very well at night about the values that I uphold and the way we treat people, and the way that we try and protect the integrity of this code, absolutely."

But that has not been Ms Hird's experience.

Hird flew to France to start a three-month MBA course last Friday and Ms Hird is packing so the rest of the family can join him at the end of the month.

She sees things differently to Demetriou.

"It wasn't about the integrity of the game by any stretch of the imagination; it was all about the AFL brand," she said.

Topics: australian-football-league, sport, doping-in-sports, australia, vic

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