Substance issues in AFL 'volcanic'

Collingwood CEO Gary Pert says illicit drugs are the biggest problem facing the AFL, especially during the off-season.

Collingwood chief executive Gary Pert has raised unconfirmed rumours about AFL footballers not just using drugs, but dealing them. Picture: Alex Coppel Source: Herald Sun

GARY Pert dropped his drugs bombshell at a meeting of club chief executives and AFL bosses the day before the national draft.

It followed a long discussion about game equalisation strategies and took most of the league's powerbrokers by surprise.

In front of an audience that included AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, Pert took the floor for 30 minutes and described what he says is an alarming illegal drugs problem among AFL players.

Yesterday he went further, calling it "volcanic behaviour" in the off-season.

The inference taken from some in the conference room at Gold Coast's Metricon Stadium was that Pert was speaking about Collingwood players - not just a wider industry problem as explained by the Magpies chief executive in yesterday's Herald Sun.

Pert is adamant he was talking generally about AFL players, not specifically his own.

He had broached the drugs topic with Demetriou a few days earlier and was given permission to raise it as an agenda item.

In emphasising the problem, he raised unconfirmed rumours about AFL footballers not just using drugs, but dealing them.

"I can confirm that I spoke to the CEOs about the types of rumours that are out there and do damage to the industry, no matter how accurate," Pert said yesterday.

Picture gallery: Pies' pre-season punishment

"But there was absolutely no specific reference to any player or any club."

The night before the Gold Coast meeting, Pert had dinner at the Crowne Plaza with West Coast chief Trevor Nisbett and let him know what he intended to do at the chief executives' conference.

Nisbett is no stranger to drugs and football and was at the helm when Ben Cousins and his mates were running amok in the west.

Yesterday, with the story plastered across the front page of the Herald Sun, Pert emailed his fellow chief executives to express disappointment that the story had got out.

But if his fears are right, it won't be long until a far bigger story breaks.

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