Drugs involved in hotel room incident with Swans players and two mystery men

An ex-AFL player and a mystery man were partying with five Sydney Swans players in a hotel room where drugs were present before an alleged sexual assault occurred.

A source familiar with the police investigation, but not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed drugs were involved in the early morning incident. However, it is not suggested the Swans teammates were responsible for the drugs being there or that they took them.

Swans chief executive Matthew Pavlich repeatedly dodged questions on Wednesday at a press conference about whether drugs were involved, or whether his players had been tested.

Victorian police are not empowered to conduct drug tests outside of roadside traffic stops.

Detectives have flown to Sydney to continue their inquiry, according to the ABC, after spending the week gathering formal statements from the women at the centre of the alleged incident in the Pullman East Melbourne hotel room.

This masthead reported on Wednesday that senior player Isaac Heeney is the focus of the police investigation , which involves an allegation of touching beyond what was agreed.

Heeney, along with teammates Riley Bice, James Jordon, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey have all been suspended by the club for the rest of the season.

The group remained in Melbourne on Monday, accompanied by a lawyer, to speak to police but were told investigators were not ready to conduct a formal interview or take witness statements.

The alleged sexual assault is said to have taken place while women were naked in the room, with one performing lap dances, in the early hours of Monday.

The source said that, in addition to the Swans players, two other men who are yet to be publicly identified were also there.

They confirmed the mystery men were not current players, and the club has said there were no other Swans players involved in the alleged incident.

Victoria Police again declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

“We won’t be commenting further on the specifics of the investigation,” a spokesperson said.

The Sydney Swans did not respond to a request for comment about the presence of drugs at the scene or to confirm whether any team member had been drug tested since Monday.