Former club doctor drops drugs bombshell on AFL

He even named Dorevitch Pathology in Heidelberg as the facility the AFL used to conduct the alleged secret testing.

“I rise to bring the house’s attention to deeply troubling allegations of egregious misconduct within the AFL provided by former Melbourne Football Club president Glen Bartlett, former Melbourne Football Club doctor Zeeshan Arain and Shaun Smith, father of Melbourne player and now alleged drug trafficker Joel Smith,” Wilkie said.

“The allegations include the prevalence of drug abuse and other prohibited behaviour across the AFL, off-the-books drug testing of players at Dorevitch Pathology in Heidelberg, facilitated by the former chief medical officer of the AFL Peter Harcourt, the resting of players testing positive in these secret tests, ostensibly on account of injury, wilful ­inaction by AFL chairman Richard Goyder, and former CEO Gill McLachlan.

“The allegations are credible, detailed and provided in signed statements which have been given to me which clearly identify the sources of the information.

“The allegations are also deeply troubling … Such appalling behaviour endangers the life, safety and future of players and officials, subverts the official drug testing conducted by Sports Integrity Australia on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Authority and is a fraud on the governments that provide millions of dollars in support to the AFL directly and indirectly through tax-breaks, grants and beneficial capital works, conditional on the AFL being a signatory to and complying with WADA code.

“This is not conjecture, with Dr Arain describing the matter clearly in this signed statement where he states that, and I’ll quote Dr Arain: The off-the-books testing took place at Heidelberg Dorevitch. The former chief health officer of the AFL Peter Harcourt gave me the contact of the guy at Heidelberg who would do the testing.

“Here is what happened as has been described to me (by Dr Arain): The AFL wants the player to play at all costs and so the cover-up begins.

“If there are no illegal drugs in the player’s system they are free to play, and if there are drugs in their system the player is often asked to fake an ­injury.

“They are advised to lie about a condition, while the ­results of the off-the-book tests are kept secret and are never shared with Sports Integrity Australia or WADA.

“In other words, hundreds of thousands of Australians will watch the game not knowing that the game has been secretly manipulated by the AFL and thousands of Australians will bet on that game not knowing the game has been secretly ­manipulated by the AFL.

“So next time you hear a player has a hamstring injury, you could be forgiven for wondering what is really going on.

“But as Dr Arain explains, this isn’t just a Melbourne problem, it is an AFL problem, with multiple players coming to Melbourne from other teams with pre-existing cocaine dependencies, more than suggesting that drug testing workarounds are commonplace elsewhere in the AFL.

“The documents in my possession also indicate a shocking unwillingness of senior AFL ­executives to address drug abuse by players and executives, particularly in relation to cocaine use.

“For instance here are very detailed notes of a telephone meeting between Gill McLachlan, Richard Goyder and Glen Bartlett.”

Demons player Smith is currently accused of drug trafficking.

The allegations by Sports Integrity Australia are not criminal in nature. In an anti-doping context, trafficking may include an athlete “selling, delivering or distributing” any prohibited substance.

The AFL has been contacted by Wide World of Sports for comment.