The head of the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency, David Howman, will visit Australia in   October, a matter of weeks before his organisation seeks to prove that 34 AFL players received banned drugs in a program run at Essendon.
WADA has declined to answer questions from Fairfax Media about whether the 25th annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association is the sole purpose of Howman's journey from WADA's Canada base. 
But the trip, which the global anti-doping head is understood to have committed to more than a year ago, is now particularly timely given WADA's appeal of an AFL anti-doping tribunal finding that went in the favour of Essendon players.
That high-stakes case will be heard through the Court of Arbitration for Sport and is scheduled to commence in Sydney in   November.
WADA has not elaborated on any aspect of its director-general's imminent Australian visit, confirming Howman's attendance to the sports law conference only.
WADA would not say how long Howman intended to stay, or whether he would take the opportunity to meet with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, representatives of the National Rugby League or Australian Football League who have been embroiled in doping scandals for the best part of the past three years.
Howman has a one-hour window for his address on the second day of the two-day ANZSLA conference, which has a "what makes the gold standard for sport?" theme and will be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He will then sit on a panel for a question-and-answer session and is expected to attend the conference dinner that night.
The ANZSLA conference, which moves locations around Australia and New Zealand annually, typically attracts an assortment of lawyers, sports administrators, students, academics, barristers and judges, but is open to paying members of the public. A recent keynote speaker was former NSW premier and now retired WADA president John Fahey.  
Howman has a long association with ANZSLA, which has a membership of about 600, as an original representative from New Zealand on the association's board.
The second keynote speaker at this year's conference will be Australian Sports Commission chief executive Simon Hollingsworth. Racing Victoria's manager of integrity, Dayle Brown, Richmond Football Club president and former partner and consultant of Melbourne law firm Lander & Rogers, Peggy O'Neal, and sports and commercial lawyer Darren Kane are among the other speakers.
A foundation board member of WADA and director-general since   August 2003, Howman arrived at the international anti-doping organisation as a barrister specialising in sports law.
In forecasting his intention to fully review the recent and highly damaging episodes in Australian sport, Howman also affirmed his absolute faith in the efficacy of the WADA code in a team setting. That point that has been openly questioned by the AFL and AFL Players Association, which says the current global sports doping code is far better tailored to individual athletes.
"There has been no suggestion from any team sports that they were not catered for appropriately within the rules," Howman told Fairfax Media in   March, which was before the AFL anti-doping tribunal gave its ruling on the 34 footballers, some now retired, charged over Essendon's program.
WADA's appeal against the AFL tribunal verdict followed ASADA's decision not to appeal the finding, despite an emphatic statement from ASADA boss Ben McDevitt in   April that he remained convinced Essendon players received banned drugs.
"I'm very confident. It's whether or not you can prove it," McDevitt said, even after the tribunal came to the unanimous position that it could not be "comfortably satisfied" banned drugs were administered to players.
Essendon has consistently said they are confident the 34 past and present players involved would be cleared.
Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday night that WADA will claim in the CAS that abnormally high amounts of banned drug thymosin beta-4 have been detected in two frozen urine samples taken from players who were on Essendon's list in 2012.
Though these readings do not equate to a positive test, WADA has formed the view that the heightened level of thymosin beta-4 suggests external administration of the banned drug.