Essendon will meet with Jobe Watson's management this week as both parties prepare for the historic November 15 AFL Commission meeting at which the fate of Watson's 2012 Brownlow Medal will be decided.
While Watson is yet to decide what approach he will take, he has the option to front the commission, who have the power to strip Watson's medal after he and 33 other players from the Bombers' 2012 list were suspended for the duration of the 2016 season in January by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, over their involvement in the club's ill-fated 2012 supplements program.
The players launched an appeal with a Swiss court, but it was rejected earlier this month, leaving the Bombers captain vulnerable to losing the game's highest individual honour, which he won ahead of Richmond's Trent Cotchin and then-Hawthorn star Sam Mitchell, both of whom stand to win medals should Watson be stripped of his title.
Bombers chief executive Xavier Campbell said the club would be guided by the instructions of the skipper when making a submission to the AFL ahead of the meeting.
"We've been asked to provide a submission by the AFL, and will meet with Jobe's management representatives later this week to work through what the approach is there," Campbell told SEN on Monday.
"The AFL have been pretty clear on what this looks like. It's up to Jobe as to how he wants to approach it. We certainly have some views but we'll certainly be led by Jobe and where he's at and what he wants to do."
Campbell said that Watson hadn't decided on his course of action.
"He's still contemplating [his approach]."
Campbell also reiterated that he believed Watson should retain the medal, but that it wasn't the club's priority.
"We feel there's grounds for him keeping that.
"Our focus is just supporting Jobe, supporting those players and families as they come out the back end of what's been a pretty challenging few years for them."
Campbell also said that a mooted appeal from banned players to a European human right courts was "highly unlikely".
