Bomber Thompson was an AFL star collecting three premierships during his playing career with the Essendon Bombers and a further two under his coaching at the Geelong Cats. Now, he has been caught up in a drug trafficking scandal along with three others following his arrest yesterday.
It was less than a year ago that Thompson stated in an interview that he believed that the Essendon drug saga “would end up killing” him. Sadly, for the 54 year old, it seems that the downfall from the Essendon saga has managed to spiral even further.
Following his 202 game career for the Bombers, Thompson went on to coach Geelong for a further 260 games before returning to his home club as an assistant coach under James Hird at the end of 2010 following his resignation from Geelong.
Following James Hird’s resignation as head coach in 2014 amidst the supplements saga, Thompson was named head coach and took the reins for the 2014 season. This is the time that Thompson’s career in the AFL began to change.
The supplements saga was finally concluded at the end of the 2016 season with 34 players suspended for 12 months and the club fined a total of $2 million. James Hird was suspended, Stephan Dank banned from sport for life and club manager Danny Corcoran was also suspended.
Thompson was only fined $30,000 at the time, however it has been made clear since that the saga had far greater personal impacts that it did financial. Thompson has previously said that the saga ridded him of his love for the game and destroyed his second marriage.
Thompson has made clear his feelings about the Essendon supplements saga in the past believing that he wasn’t given a chance to defend himself and has subsequently become “bitter” with the system.
It now appears that the former Geelong coach’s reputation is about to take a further hit with his home being raided by police on Friday when they suspected him to be involved in a drug trafficking scandal.
There has been clear footage shown of police entering his Port Melbourne Property early on Friday morning before arresting Thompson on Tuesday. He was released pending further inquiries.
A man identified as Thomas Windsor, 28, was determined to have been living at the property and was also arrested on Tuesday charged with drug trafficking. Two others, a 31 year-old man from Lara and 22 year-old woman from Mill Park were also charged.
Thomas Windsor is believed to have links to the Rebels bikie gang. The trafficking charges are understood to have involved a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, ecstasy and MDMA.
Police did not comment on Thompson’s involved in the drug trafficking scandal, maintaining that the arrests were part of an ongoing investigation.