As voting for two positions on Essendon's board of directors begins, one candidate has declared his opposition to James Hird remaining coach of the club.
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Bill Jennings, who runs a mentoring program for schools, is one of nine people running for the Bomber board, and to date the only one to publicly state his opposition to Hird returning as coach for 2015 after his AFL suspension.
Jennings says he cannot support Hird remaining coach irrespective of the outcome of either Hird's Federal Court appeal against the legality of the ASADA investigation or the AFL Tribunal's hearing of infraction notices against 34 past and present Essendon players.
"James Hird has to be more responsible for the mess our club is in," Jennings writes on his personal blog. "He has to take some responsibility for deciding to go down the supplements regime path. It doesn't, in one sense, really matter what the final outcomes are. The damage scattered behind us is substantial."
Jennings says Hird's legacy will be "players under medical surveillance for years to come", the departure of ruckman Paddy Ryder, and Essendon's "debt to the tune of several million dollars".
Jennings writes he finds it incongruous that Hird was paid during his 12-month suspension, but that the club has a policy of removing a "donation" from members who use a deduction system to pay for their memberships unless they opt out. He says Hird's resignation would be a "noble, unifying act that could help the club move on", and also leave the door open for him to one day return to the club.
"This is a genuine invitation for James' consideration," he says. "Resign. Take no payout from the club. Acknowledge that the decisions you made contributed to the sequence of disastrous consequences our club has endured. Being genuinely sorry will also give opportunity for those within our club who feel aggrieved at his actions to actually forgive him."
While another board candidate in Ron Gauci has offered only qualified support for Hird, Gauci's running mate Jason Cunningham said last week he hoped to see Hird "be part of this great club's drive for success for many seasons to come".
Another two nominees, Paul Cousins and Katie Lio, have both made the retention of Hird as coach a key part of their platform for the election, which concludes on December 8.
