Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia
Government House
Dunrossil Drive
YARRALUMLA ACT 2600
6 February 2026
Your Excellency
RE: Possible breaches of the Crimes Act when you were an AFL Commissioner
For your edification, I spent over 20,000 hours researching the Essendon, AFL and ASADA roles in prosecuting James Hird, Mark Thompson, Danny Corcoran, Dr Bruce Reid for alleged occupational, health and safety breaches, and prosecuting 34 Essendon players for being administered an alleged WADA prohibited substance. Furthermore, I wrote over two million words on the subject and have over 30,000 documents in my files.
Recently, I created a website that includes the most alarming allegations against you and your fellow commissioners.
Google: (https://www.essendonafldrugsaga.com)
It gives me no pleasure to inform you that my consulting KC, a former Supreme Court Judge, believes that the AFL Commissioners, which includes you, and senior executives, such as Andrew Demetriou, Gillon McLachlan and Andrew Dillon, possibly committed several breaches of the Crimes Act.
Inter alia, the judge listed POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CHARGES against the AFL commissioners and senior executives viz:
- The AFL conspired with ASADA, Essendon and the Federal government on 9 February 2013 to fix the result of their investigation before the first witness was interviewed.(A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
- The Essendon board endorsed the agreement reached by the AFL, ASADA and the Gillard government.(A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
- The action of AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou continually implying in the media that Essendon and James Hird were guilty.(A POSSIBLE BREACH OF THEIR RIGHT TO PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS)
- The AFL briefed the proposed jury (the AFL Commissioners) on the evidence before the investigation was completed.(A POSSIBLE SUBORNING OF DECISION MAKERS AND INTERFERING WITH THE PROCESS OF JUSTICE)
- The AFL informed the ‘jury’ before the investigation was completed that the Essendon Football Club, James Hird, Danny Corcoran and Mark Thompson were guilty.(A POSSIBLE SUBORNING OF DECISION MAKERS, INTERFERING WITH THE PROCESS OF JUSTICE AND PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- The AFL informed the ‘jury’ before the investigation was completed what some of the penalties would be.(A POSSIBLE PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- The AFL bullied and blackmailed the Essendon Football Club, James Hird, Danny Corcoran and Mark Thompson to accept the penalties before charges were laid.(A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL DURESS TO PERVERT THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- The Essendon board agreed to the fraud to mitigate the threat of more severe penalties.(A POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY)
- ASADA changed evidence; omitted evidence; and fabricated evidence to help the AFL create a case against Essendon, Hird, Corcoran and Thompson.(A POSSIBLE PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AND PERJURY)
- The AFL denied Hird procedural fairness by wanting him stood aside as coach before he was even interviewed.(A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- At the AFL’s behest, on 25 June 2013, David Evans asked James Hird if he would agree to be suspended and Essendon be banned from playing in the finals-series.(A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- On separate occasions, deputy AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan (26 June 2013) and Andrew Demetriou (24 July 2013) asked ASADA chief executive Ms Aurora Andruska to omit information from the interim report. Those omissions may have contributed to the AFL being able to defraud Essendon of $2 million.(A POSSIBLE INTERFERING IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AND CONSPIRACY TO PERVERT THE COURSE OF JUSTICE)
- The AFL asked ASADA to include things in the interim report to prove guilt. This contributed to the AFL defrauding Essendon of $2 million.(A POSSIBLE CONSPIRACY AND PERJURY)
- ASADA’s investigator tried to doctor (inflate) the injection figures on 15 July 2013, to build the case against Essendon.(A POSSIBLE ATTEMPTED FORGERY AND CONSPIRACY)
The website (https://www.essendonafldrugsaga.com) contains irrefutable proof that:
- ASADA breached Section 317 of the Crimes Act by tampering with the evidence. ASADA changed Thymosin to Thymosin Beta-4 on 51 occasions. Clearly, if Thymosin and Thymosin Beta-4 were the same substance, there was no need to risk a 10-year custodial sentence for breaching the Crimes Act. Unconscionably, the AFL Commissioners condoned such behaviour.
- ASADA CEO David Sharpe informed the Herald Sun that as at 10:34:17 am on 4 February 2013, Thymosin Beta-4, by name, was not a prohibited WADA substance. As members of the proposed “jury”, it is incomprehensible that you and your fellow commissioners didn’t do anything about ASADA illegally changing the status of Thymosin Beta-4 on 4 February 2013.
- Sharpe admitted that ASADA changed its status by 12:59:17 pm on that day. Res ipsa loquitur, the change was corrupt and unlawful because WADA is the only organisation that can change the status of a substance. Unconscionably, the AFL Commissioners condoned such behaviour.
- WADA subsequently, listed Thymosin Beta-4 as a prohibited substance on 1 January 2018.
- Neither the AFL nor WADA prosecuted the case against a single player. It is incomprehensible that you didn’t insist that you be briefed on the evidence against each player. Basically, you decided that if one player were guilty, all 34 were guilty. What sort of justice was that?
- Surely, as a jurist, if charges were to be laid, you knew it was immoral to be told of the guilt findings and punishments by Demetriou or McLachlan before the investigation was completed.
- Lead ASADA investigator Aaron Walker acknowledged in his 15 January 2015 affidavit that there was no evidence that either Stephen Dank or Essendon took possession of Thymosin Beta-4 in calendar 2011 or 2012. Thus, if there were no evidence of Dank having Thymosin Beta-4, it was impossible for him to have administered it.
- The AFL and Essendon ignored the information that a senior official with a huge conflict of interest whose name I was told by the Essendon CEO, treacherously pressured WADA to appeal the not guilty AFL Tribunal decision.
- As stated in the Victorian Occupational, Health and Safety Act, about thirty people – the AFL Commissioners, Andrew Demetriou, Gillon McLachlan, Andrew Dillon, Adrian Anderson, Brett Clothier, the Human Resource Manager, the Occupational Health and Safety Manager, the Essendon Board, CEO Ian Robson, the Human Resource Manager, the Occupational Health and Safety Manager, the football manager Paul Hamilton and the two doctors – all had more responsibility to provide a safe workplace than James Hird, Mark Thompson and Danny Corcoran. Sacrificing Hird, Thompson and Corcoran to save you and the forementioned was arguably defamatory, if not criminal defamation.
- Clearly, you must have known that the AFL Commissioners, as joint employers with the Essendon Board of the players, had an iron-clad responsibility to provide a safe workplace for the players.
- Res ipsa loquitur, anyone who creates a false case against Essendon legends has lost their morale compass.
Your Excellency, fortunately, you are in a unique position to correct the greatest injustice in the history of Australian sport.
May I be bold enough to suggest you take the following action:
- Instruct your legal team to assess my claims on the website.
- If they agree that I have made my case, you have informal discussions with the AFL about exonerating James Hird, Mark Thompson, Danny Corcoran and Jobe Watson
- Suggest, in the light of new research, the AFL lobby Sport Integrity Australia and the Australian Sports Commission to lobby WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the guilty finding against the 34 Essendon players.
Yours faithfully
Bruce Francis: cc my website