For those of you from the rugby states who haven’t been following this rather embarrassing saga, Ben Cousins is one of the most talented AFL footballers of the modern era. As a midfielder with the West Coast Eagles, he captained the side from 2001 to 2005, won the Brownlow medal in 2005, won his club’s best and fairest award four times (in a team that also included Chris Judd, amongst other champion players), and played in two Grand Finals, with a win in 2006. Cousins, however, has a taste for mind-altering substances of various kinds, legal and illegal. He’s also had friendships with a number of Perth’s more colourful “underworld identities”; as summarized here. He was sacked by the Eagles in 2007, after being arrested by police driving driving around “erratically” with various prescription tranquilizers and – wait for it – Viagra – in his car. He was then deregistered by the AFL for 12 months, after an apparent cocaine binge while supposedly seeking rehabilitation in Los Angeles.

After lengthy debates on whether the AFL would let Cousins play again, the imposition of an onerous testing drug testing regime, and Brisbane, St. Kilda and Collingwood all considering drafting Cousins before dipping out. It seems that, in most cases, the footballing staff were keen, the club management decided that it would antagonize sponsors too much. Richmond, it seems, are prepared to take the risk of sponsor opprobrium, to pick up a proven champion, still potentially near his peak, for virtually nothing.

Frankly, the whole circus has been rather embarrassing. Ben Cousins is a grade-A doofus, granted. But – with the exception of a 2001 incident where he got into a fistfight with a teammate about that teammate’s relationship with his cousin – any harm caused by Cousins has been to himself, not to anyone else. He didn’t take performance-enhancing drugs. He didn’t abuse women. By driving under the influence of drugs, he put other people at risk, but any number of other AFL players have done that. But three AFL clubs refused to take him, and a fourth, desperate for success, has seemingly only done so because fans have clamoured for it.

Aside from the image concerns of sponsors, the reluctance to touch Cousins probably has a bit to do with the internal culture of footy clubs. AFL clubs are full of boys still in, or just out of their teens, with more money and spare time than they know what to do with, and fans treating them like gods. So, despite the PR guff, in my (limited, admittedly, but direct) experience, they behave like it’s summer camp with no supervision. In that situation, an older player like Cousins, particularly if he comes back and plays well while still powdering his nose and hanging round with the local mobsters, could easily lead a whole bunch of the younger draftees down the same track. And while freaks like Cousins might be able to play at the highest level while maintaining a taste for Bolivian nose candy, it’s not so clear that the mere mortals who round out the lists of footy clubs can do so.

But, more than that, it comes down to the fact that the AFL likes to promote its players as moral exemplars, rather than just people who are talented at moving an oval piece of leather from one end of a grass-covered field to another. This, despite repeated examples that exceptional footballing talent has essentially no correlation at all with moral rectitude. Frankly, the sooner we all collectively get over that particular delusion, the better.