{"id":193022,"date":"2025-10-06T08:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193022\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T08:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:48:10","slug":"essendon-illicit-drug-use-meeting-upsets-players-ceo-craig-vozzo-criticised-for-breaching-confidentiality-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193022\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon illicit drug use meeting upsets players, CEO Craig Vozzo criticised for breaching confidentiality, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Essendon players raised concerns with the players\u2019 union after a testy meeting about illicit drugs involving the playing group and club higher-ups.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tommorris32\/status\/1975097551230759109\" title=\"x.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Nine\u2019s Tom Morris reports<\/a> Bombers players felt CEO Craig Vozzo crossed the line with the way he spoke about player drug use and potentially breached player confidentiality.<\/p>\n<p>Positive drug tests by players are kept hidden under the current AFL illicit drug policy.<\/p>\n<p>Watch every match of the 2025 NAB AFL Women\u2019s Season LIVE ad-break free during play. New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au?pg=afl&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkafl-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-afl-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" title=\"kayosports.com.au\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>WHAT&#8217;S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis stems from a meeting at the club in late June before the team\u2019s bye round,\u201d Morris said on Nine News.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the agenda, illicit drug use. Leading the meeting was CEO Craig Vozzo, alongside coach Brad Scott and football boss Dan McPherson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVosso claims the intention of the discussion was simply centred on care, support, welfare and also education before the players went on leave; however, the tone of the meeting clearly backfired.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome players felt Vozzo crossed the line, breaching boundaries regarding drug use and players\u2019 confidentiality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlayers were so affronted that they took their concerns to the union, the AFLPA, saying Vozzo was heavy-handed and that he\u2019d implied there was a drug problem within the group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why would you say that?!&#8221; | 00:38<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir view was that at least one of Vozzo, Scott or McPherson should\u2019ve raised the contents of the meeting with the leaders before taking it to the wider group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s understood that the AFLPA then contacted Vozzo directly to discuss the drug code and to educate him on the best way to have these conversations with players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVozzo accepted the feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon players raised concerns with the players\u2019 union after a testy meeting about illicit drugs involving the playing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-193022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}