RUGBY league fans have asked plenty of questions about the drugs in sport saga swallowing the Cronulla Sharks, as rumour follows gossip leading up to Sunday’s home game between the Sharks and the Gold Coast Titans.
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With rumours emerging that angry senior Sharks players fronted a former conditioner with the immediate future of a dozen or more Sharks players on the line — and with the Cronulla club management, the players and their managers apparently split over cutting supposed deals with the Australian Sports Anti Doping Authority — the Leader believes the drama won’t be finalised any time soon.
However it must have an effect on the club, still without a major sponsor, and the coaching staff headed by Shane Flanagan, trying to prepare his team leading up to Sunday.
Some of the pertinent questions being asked, and which many sports lawyers would want answered if they were handling the case, include:
* Were the Sharks players given supplements which contained peptides or substances which were not on the WADA list of banned performance enhancing substances in 2011, but were later included on that list?
* Did players know what they were taking and did they continue to take them after those supplements were listed?
* Were the players told it was illegal to manipulate body hormones with unlisted substances?
* Did the National Rugby League make clear the code, and any changes, to their 16 clubs at the time.
* At any stage did the club sports medicine department, including the club trainer, advise the players to stop taking the banned supplements and explain why they should stop?
* Did players protest their innocence, or did they make any admissions to their club or ASADA investigators?
* Have the club and players received proper legal instruction since ASADA met club board members on Monday? Did former ASADA senior counsel Richard Redman encourage Cronulla players to admit guilt and accept six-month bans?
* What is happening with former Sharks players who have left the club since 2011, and how many sportsmen in football codes and other sports are being investigated?
Complete Sharks covereage
