AFL boss Andrew Demetriou has refused to speculate on whether Essendon players could avoid sanction over the club's supplements saga given uncertainty over the classification of the drug at the heart of the investigation.
ASADA provided advice last year that the drug, AOD-9604, which Essendon captain Jobe Watson has admitted to taking, was not prohibited, Fox Footy's AFL 360 program reported on Tuesday night.
ASADA gave the same advice to an AFL anti-doping official in March this year and an ASADA investigator told a briefing of Essendon players in May that the prospect of successful prosecution of players who took the drug last year was very low, the program reported.
The advice reportedly given by ASADA (the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority) contrasts with a statement issued by WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) in April.
WADA said in the statement that AOD-9604 was banned under the S0 clause of the anti-doping code, which prohibits the use of any substance that has not been approved by any governmental regulatory health authority for human therapeutic use.
Demetriou, who said last Friday there was uncertainty over the classification of the drug, said he would not comment on what it might mean for Bombers players, but looked forward to the completion of the investigation, expected in August.
"All I'm going to say is what I said the other day and that is that there is some uncertainty around the status of AOD-9604," Demetriou told Fox Footy on Tuesday night.
"What I don't want to do is pre-empt the outcome of the investigation.
"I've said continuously that the public, the media, the football world, are demanding answers, they want to know, they should know.
"We are all very keen to get the outcome of the ASADA investigation and that's when those questions will be answered."
Demetriou said last week the view from WADA that the drug was banned contrasted with the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report into drugs and crime in sport, released in February, which said it wasn't.
The ACC released a statement on Tuesday night saying they received correct advice from ASADA while compiling their report, that AOD-9604 was not banned under schedule S2 of the WADA prohibited list, which specifies certain categories of banned substances.
But the ACC said WADA was the "pre-eminent authority and expert in this field" and the ACC welcomed the clarification provided by WADA in April that AOD-9604 was prohibited under the S0 classification.
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