Willie Rioli will this weekend make an emotional return to football after agreeing to rip up his contract during a two-year doping ban battle.
Rioli, who hasn’t played since 2019 after being suspended for tampering with a drug sample, volunteered to accept minimum wage for the 2020 and 2021 seasons in a show of faith to West Coast, who stood by him and supported him.
West Coast paid Rioli’s legal fees, which ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Experienced QC David Grace was hired to represent Rioli, whose suspension ended last Friday.
It paves the way for a decisive 2022 campaign for the Eagles goalsneak. Rioli has a contract for next season where he will receive a modest base wage plus match payments.
West Coast is this week wrestling with whether to play Rioli in what will most likely be the Eagles’ final game of the season against Brisbane at the Gabba or orchestrating a return via the WAFL.
If Rioli plays AFL, he will be made to quarantine upon for 14 days upon his return to Perth, which would make him ineligible for the last two matches of the WAFL season.
“It’s been a long, long journey back but I’m grateful,” Rioli told the West Coast website.
“I get nervous before every game. I guess this will be more a relief for me. It will probably be surreal to me also.
“It will mean a lot, not only to me, but my family who have been through these hard times with me. It will mean the world.
“It’s been mentally challenging. Luckily enough, I had great family support back home. I guess waiting for the outcome was the hardest part, not knowing what my future was looking like.
“(Club support) was really important. They kept my dream alive of playing AFL football again. Everyone around the club stuck by me and believed in me.”
Rioli had faced a maximum four-year ban for urine substitution.