Last week, I had the honour of being interviewed by Tracey Holmes for her sports programme The Ticket on Australia’s ABC Radio which was aired on Sunday. Tracey put together a special ‘Court of Arbitration for Sport 101’ edition in the wake of the announcement that the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) will appeal an Australian case – which has its own Wikipedia page – against 34 past and present players of Essendon Football Club, nicknamed The Bombers, an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Last month, the Essendon players were cleared of anti-doping charges brought by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) before an AFL Tribunal. Following WADA’s appeal, the case will now be reviewed by the Court of Arbitration of Sport in Lausanne. I shared my analysis of the legal challenges by Claudia Pechstein and Wilhelmshaven football club against CAS decisions, which were successful in the Munich and in the Bremen court of appeals, respectively, as reported in previous posts. Here is the link to the podcast of the programme – Tracey used the Essendon case, which appears to be really big down under, to put together a great case study that looks at the interplay of domestic and international doping rules and the role CAS plays in all of this.
The photo was taken at an 2007 AFL game between the Hawks and the Bombers. Copyright Tom Reynolds via Wikipedia.