Kennett has called for all AFL contracts to carry clauses that players agree to never use illegal drugs.
If players breach their contracts, they should be automatically suspended or thrown out of the game altogether, according to the hard-hitting former Hawks boss and one-time Victorian premier.
Kennett says players should adhere to strict testing with a zero tolerance to drug use.
“This sport is not just about the players,” he said.
“If you get the opportunity to play AFL football, you’re an elite sportsman or woman.
“If the AFL had a condition and code that says no illicit drugs and no performance enhancing drugs, full stop and you were found to have breached that rule, you should be suspended.
“Why shouldn’t we just say the taking of illicit drugs and performance enhancing drugs is illegal?
“That’s the basis on which you join the AFL.
“If you don’t like it, don’t join.
“If you abuse that condition you get thrown out of it.
“It’s so simple.”
In typical hard-hitting Kennett fashion, the former Hawks boss called for “heads to roll” after confidential information that some Collingwood players had confessed to illegal drug use had leaked into public forums.
“I suspect that the AFL has made public that a number of Collingwood players have self reported,” Kennett said on Fairfax radio 6PR.
“If they have done that, it breaches every code of confidentiality that exists in this area and someone’s head should roll.”
Kennett bluntly declares that players “don’t have to sign up” if they choose not to enter the AFL when offered a contract that strictly bans illicit drug use.
“If the AFL is serious about drugs and removing the use of either performance enhancing or illicit drugs from the playing groups and the administrations the simplest ways to go is to ban them,” Kennett demanded.
“If you are detected having used them, taken them, then you get suspended, full stop. For a year.
“I’ve got friends who are Olympian performers who are rowers, etcetera and Gold medallists and they can be tested at anytime, anywhere around the world and if they are found to have taken drugs, they get their heads lopped.”
AFL circles are wildly debating raging concerns that use of illicit substances through clubs is on the rise.
An official summit was held at AFL House in Melbourne on Wednesday with all 18 club chief executives, league bosses Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan as well as heavyweights from the powerful Player’s Association all in attendance.