The Governor · @TheGovernorSM
7th Jan 2017 from TwitLonger
James Hird written by Bruce Francis
Dear @EssendonFC President Lindsay Tanner,
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With friends like you, James Hird doesn’t need any more enemies.
Your mealy-mouthed press statement following his hospitalisation has made my stomach turn, not the least your use of the world “family”.
Family doesn’t allow to stand unchallenged an egregious wrong done against its members as you have done with James Hird, and with the 34 players – and others within your club.
Another reason your use of the word family is despicable is because it implies Essendon supporters are united as one with you.
They are not. Life members, long-time employees, former employees and a vast contingent of your members and supporters vehemently disagree with your Neville Chamberlain-like approach to the whole supplements saga.
It is obvious to even Blind Freddie there will be no peace in your time while ever the “outrageous” decision, I used the inverted commas because this is your description of it in your own annual report, by the Court of Arbitration for Sport is allowed to stand.
Or while you meekly bow to the AFL’s demands that you forget the past and look to the future.
And your claim that you will reach out to James. What … with a phone call?
Why would James Hird take a phone call from you after the way you and previous presidents have abandoned him.
I notified one of your predecessors on November the 10th last year that a crisis around James’ health was about to occur. Inter alia, in reaching out to him I informed him that James “was a broken man”. I said James was fragile and was close to going over the edge.
That’s two months before he did. That former president did nothing, not even the courtesy of a reply.
It is well known that another club president, in collusion with the AFL, threw James under the bus back in 2013 in order to get the Essendon board and AFL off the hook. A decision that was shamefully endorsed by the Essendon board.
So why in Heaven’s name would James Hird trust anyone with the title Essendon Club President attached to their name?
Words are not enough. You need to show that the club really cares. The club should do something far more meaningful than a phone call, and it should offer to pay James’ medical expenses, since the club’s actions – and heinous inactions - and those of the game of Australian football itself are greatly responsible for his health issues.
And then the big one: An offer, once his health has been restored and his medical expenses covered, to sit down and have a chat about what is the best way to have the “outrageous” CAS decision thrown out.
And don’t come the standard “there is no appeal against a decision by CAS” with me. CAS is a cosy boys club, answerable to no one, made up of superannuated lawyers riding a gravy train.
If this “outrageous” decision were publicly torn apart – and you have all the evidence you need to do that - these Colonel Blimps could do no more than splutter into their gins and tonics.
I have written to you so many times to point out how the AFL breached its obligations under the WADA rules by registering Stephen Dank to work within the AFL system. If the AFL had done its job, Dank would never have been allowed to work with a WADA affiliated athlete – and that includes the players at the Gold Coast Suns, Essendon and Melbourne Football Club.
I have also written to you many times to point out how ASADA changed evidence; fabricated evidence; omitted evidence; and testified in its own investigation.
I have written to you many times to point out the manifold flaws in the CAS decision. In doing so, I identified examples of CAS’s corruption, ineptitude and bias.
Apart from that one word in your annual report – “outrageous” – you have been absolutely mute.
That is not the act of a “family” member.
Perhaps you could put in a call to Tania Hird and other members of the Hird family to find out how a “family” really behaves.
Her courage in the face of the criticism levelled at her by some sections of the that great Coward’s Castle known as the media, including a voice on one radio station that infamously said that James Hird should learn “how to control his wife”, is a shining example to family members all over the world.
You pick one of us, you pick us all. That’s how it is in a family.
When the NSW Cricket Association banned John Benaud for wearing the wrong brand of shoes, his brother Richie resigned his life membership in protest. That’s what families do.
Your players must wonder about your ideas on what “family” means in the football sense.
Out on the field, if an opponent whacks one of their team-mates, all 17 rush to his defence.
That’s how it is in the football “family”.
It is not the act of a pusillanimous president who refuses to listen to the stentorian roar of so many of the “Essendon family” members who are livid with your lily-livered compliance with orders from above.
Lindsay Tanner, you were selected by nine people to represent the wishes of the Essendon members, not to impose on them the will of the AFL or any other organisation, especially organisations who have played loose with the truth and failed to comply with their own rules.
Essendon members – the “family” - are wearied of your lack of courage, of your failure to listen to them, but rather to spout words written for you by others.
Don’t put out PR speak, no doubt written for you by someone else as well, do something tangible.
Offer to pay James Hird’s medical expenses as a sign that you really care.
Then let’s get that conversation started: What do we have to do to get all these “outrageous” wrongs put right?
That’s what James Hird wants to hear, that’s what the 34 players and their “families” want to hear, and that’s what the people whose wishes you were selected to represent and fulfil, the Essendon “family” want to hear.
Your inaction, your craven bowing to the will of those ever more guilty of wrong-doing than James Hird ever was, leaves a stain on the reputation of your club – and on you.
With friends like you, James Hird, Jobe Watson and the rest of the players and the Essendon Football Club don’t need any more enemies.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Francis.