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“I think that’s wrong”: Nathan Buckley’s passionate stance on the AFL’s illicit drugs policy
SEN • March 12th, 2025 12:31 pm
Nathan Buckley has spoken passionately about the AFL’s illicit drugs policy.
The Collingwood great believes there is a disconnect between the AFL and the 18 clubs when it comes to penalising players for illicit drug use.
Buckley firmly believes that you “either take illicit drugs or you’re a professional footballer - you cannot be both”.
Read his thoughts on the situation below:
“This has annoyed me as a leader in the locker room, this has annoyed me as an assistant coach, it annoyed me early days in senior coaching,” Buckley said on SEN’s Whateley.
“And increasingly, the disconnect between the AFL and their football clubs, on how to support their players.
“The AFL don’t support the individuals within the clubs. The managers are there to support them in some shape or form, but when they walk in the four walls, their teammates, the leaders, the leadership within that, their assistant coaches, the football program - they are the people who can support players better than anyone else.
“Some clubs do it better than others at different times, but the 18 clubs that are there care fundamentally for the human that they’re asking to go out and perform every other weekend.
“To take this illicit drugs policy and this idea that there is information that the league have - and the players are aware of it as well - they quarantine it from the environments that are there to protect and support these individuals which creates an absolute disconnect.
“I think the AFL have created a rod for their own back. I think the program enables illicit drug use rather than dealing with it. I think that’s largely around a marketing ploy about not wanting to be seen as - there’s a welfare element, absolutely, but the clubs are the best place to provide the welfare.
“If I’m a parent with a 17 or 18-year-old that’s going into an AFL environment, I’d rather that the question being asked of my kid going into an AFL environment is that you either take illicit drugs or you’re a professional footballer - you cannot be both.
“But the AFL system enables both, and I think that’s wrong.
“I think if you make a poor decision then you should be penalised for it. If you make a second poor decision then you should be penalised a little bit greater. And then over time, you’ll work out pretty quickly what’s acceptable in the environment and what’s not.
“But the AFL have taken that out of the clubs’ hands and it has created what I think is an enabling of poor decisions for professionals. Yes, they’re young men, yes, they’re defining themselves, yes, they’re developing, but they also are professional players being paid a lot of money to do what they do.
“There’s a responsibility and an accountability that comes with that. When you come to these situations, accountability is the thing that is being removed, responsibility is the thing that is being removed, and it’s wrong.
“We mollycoddle too much, we enable too much, it should be really cut and dried.
“If you love your footy, if you love getting this amount of money that’s coming your way, there’s a sacrifice that needs to be made.
“You can’t do what your mates in financial planning or stockbroking or whatever do, you can’t do that. This is the minimum standard that we’re asking of you.”
Listen to Buckley’s passionate words below:
