2012 Brownlow Medal

The 2012 Brownlow Medal was the 85th year the award was presented to the player adjudged the fairest and best player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home and away season.^[1] Jobe Watson of the Essendon Football Club originally received the medal by polling thirty votes during the 2012 AFL season,^[2] however, on 15 November 2016, the AFL Commission ruled Watson retrospectively ineligible for the award due to his suspension for using a banned supplement during the Essendon supplements saga.^[3] The medal was then retrospectively awarded to Sam Mitchell of the Hawthorn Football Club and Trent Cotchin of the Richmond Football Club, each of whom polled 26 votes.^[4]

Leading votegetters

Voting procedure

The three field umpires (those umpires who control the flow of the game, as opposed to goal or boundary umpires) confer after each match and award three votes, two votes and one vote to the players they regard as the best, second best and third best in the match, respectively. The votes are kept secret until the awards night, and are read and tallied on the evening.

As the medal is awarded to the fairest and best player in the league, those who have been suspended during the season by the AFL Tribunal (or, who avoided suspension only because of a discount for a good record or an early guilty plea) are ineligible to win the award; however, they may still continue to poll votes. Notable players who were ineligible entering the count this season included, among others: former Brownlow Medallists Jimmy Bartel, Simon Black, Chris Judd and Adam Goodes, as well as Fremantle captain Matthew Pavlich.^[5]

Effect of Essendon supplements saga

The Essendon supplements saga has led to conjecture over whether Jobe Watson should and will be able to keep the 2012 Brownlow Medal. In February 2013, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) began an investigation into the legality of Essendon's supplements program during the 2012 AFL season and the preceding preseason. Thirty four Essendon players – including Watson – were suspected of taking the banned peptide Thymosin beta-4. The review concluded with the players being found guilty in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), resulting in the suspensions of all thirty-four players. In February 2016, an appeal was lodged against that decision in the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.

Following the guilty verdict handed down by the CAS in January, it was announced the AFL Commission would meet in February to determine whether Watson would retain his Brownlow Medal;^[6] however, this decision was delayed until the outcome of the Federal Supreme Court appeal.^[7] In October 2016, the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland announced they had dismissed the appeal.^[8] The final decision regarding Jobe Watson's Brownlow medal win was decided by the AFL Commission in late November 2016, with Watson retrospectively ruled ineligible for the award, and the medal then awarded to the next highest vote-getters, Cotchin and Mitchell, under the normal rules regarding ineligible players;^[9] Watson had pre-empted the decision by announcing on 11 November 2016 that he would hand back the medal.^[10]

References