Leading player manager Craig Kelly has said he still holds fears for the health of the 34 Essendon footballers regularly injected by the club in 2012, and he has not ruled out those players taking further action to learn what substances they were given.
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Kelly, whose Elite Sports Properties handles the affairs of 14 of the 34, including Bombers captain Jobe Watson, said while he was relieved they had been cleared of doping, the medical scenario faced by the players was "scary".
"It's a disgrace what happened to them at the club," Kelly told Fairfax Media.
"But the governance of the club is the AFL's job. Our job is to make sure their rights are addressed and it was just very important in the first instance to get them to this point where they are cleared to play football again.
"Now we are at that stage, a number of questions are going to be asked. This decision on Tuesday was about getting to that point but there are still other issues we need to address. I guess that will unfold over the next few weeks.
"Where any risk to their health is concerned, I just don't know. And when you don't know that is scary."
To date only the delisted Hal Hunter has instigated legal action in a bid to learn medical details about his treatment at Essendon, in a program slammed on Tuesday by AFL chief Gillon McLachlan as "reckless" and described in the anti-doping tribunal's judgment as involving a "deplorable absence of records".
While the decision to empower and failure to supervise Stephen Dank and his program ultimately helped clear its players due to lack of evidence, the club still faces significant challenges.
This is despite Essendon chairman Paul Little still claiming nothing harmful was given to the players. Captain Watson on Tuesday expressed his disappointment on behalf of the players regarding the club's actions.
However, Kelly said players, too, should take more responsibility for their own health.
"They have to understand and take responsibility to question their clubs and ensure their livelihood and their health is not compromised," he said.
"They need to learn to talk to family members and communicate with their managers, because those people are the ones who ultimately care for them as individuals ahead of any club concerns.
"As a player, I would have done anything the club asked me to do and accepted things, but the thought of being bused over to the other side of town and injected somewhere is terrible. Our job is to make sure their rights are being addressed and that didn't happen."
Of the 34 players, Kelly's Elite Sports Properties manages five who are still playing, along with Mark McVeigh, an assistant coach at Greater Western Sydney who will resume his coaching duties for round one.
"Where Jobe is concerned, I just think he has shown remarkable leadership over the past two years," Kelly said.
"I'm just so impressed by how he behaved through this, how he has grown and held these guys together. And while going through what he was going through, he was playing with a significant injury and he played fantastic football."
