One of world sport’s most respected administrators has urged the AFL not to be swayed off expansion by the global financial crisis.

Former American National Football League (NFL) commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the AFL’s expansion plans made sense provided any new clubs would grow the sport’s fan base, regardless of the economic climate.

The AFL has earmarked a 17th team on the Gold Coast in 2011, followed by a club based in western Sydney in 2012.

But there have been rumours of possible delays because of the economic downturn.

Tagliabue, who has been one of the guests at a forum this week as part of the 150th anniversary celebration of Australian rules football, said the AFL was on the right track with its expansion plans.

He held a two-hour meeting with AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou and AFL Commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick at which a number of topics including the NFL’s experience with expansion were discussed.

“The worst things is to do it prematurely and fail,” said Tagliabue, who oversaw the NFL’s expansion from 28 teams to 32 during his 17-year tenure.

“I think here in Australia, expansion makes sense.

“From what I’ve read here, your economy is expected to avoid a recessionary period, though your economy’s growth may not be as robust as in the past.”

Demetriou reiterated the AFL’s commitment to expanding into NSW and Queensland.

“We know in NSW and Queensland we’ve got huge challenges, but we’ve got two teams (Brisbane and Sydney) that have done particularly well,” he said.

“They need some support. They need another team to create rivalry, another team to help the two clubs that have done all the heavy lifting.”

Meanwhile, Demetriou said he hoped commonsense would prevail in a looming showdown over stadium deals between the 10 Victorian AFL clubs and those who run the MCG and Telstra Dome.

The clubs want to meet with the Victorian government, which controls the MCG through the MCG Trust, claiming they are not getting a good enough deal for their matches compared to other sports and AFL clubs in other states.

“All they want is to have a fair hearing to make sure they see some upside in the economy they’re generating (for the stadia),” Demetriou said.

“You can’t have a situation where 10 Victorian clubs are generating four and a half million people going to the football, yet the return to Victorian clubs is significantly less than what’s happening in other parts of Australia.”

Cousins has been out of the AFL for 12 months recovering from drug addiction and, while most clubs have shown no interest in signing him, St Kilda is considered the club most likely to draft the midfielder after the AFL agreed last week to register him.

“It is a very important part of his (Cousins’) rehabilitation to get him back plying his trade,” said Demetriou.

“To get him back in the workforce which he loves.

“It’s a very important step in his recovery and where he ends up playing I have no preference whatsoever.”

St Kilda player Nick Dal Santo said he would love to see Cousins playing with the Saints but the players had no input into whether the club drafted him.

“The club is going through a process but the playing group have not been asked a great deal about it,” Dal Santo told reporters.

Ben Cousins’ return to football, for which the AFL Commission paved the way on Tuesday, highlights the urgent need for the sport to make drastic changes to its drug-testing policy.

The present “three strikes” system is clearly inadequate, with a reported six players who have returned two positive tests continuing to play the game and chief executive Andrew Demetriou admitting he doesn’t know who they are.

Cousins, a self-confessed drug addict, was thrown out of football 12 months ago for “bringing the game into disrepute” without ever testing positive under the AFL system.

The commission imposed severe conditions when it agreed to allow him to enter the draft on November 29, or the pre-season draft, including giving up to three urine samples a week and four hair samples a year. If he doesn’t comply he can be suspended immediately pending an investigation into the alleged breach.

All of which is understandable, even though the players’ association is uncomfortable with it.

As chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said, the commission had to consider the interests of the game and of the wider community, as well as Cousins’ future, which could be bright if he continues with what appears so far to be a successful attempt at rehabilitation.

St Kilda and Brisbane, and to a lesser extent North Melbourne, have expressed varying degrees of interest in recruiting him, with the Lions favourites if they decide to go ahead – they have an earlier draft pick than the Saints.

Cousins deserves to have this chance. He’s done his time, admitted his problem and is trying to overcome it. As Demetriou put it on Tuesday, “he’s making a real effort to rehabilitate himself”. Good luck to him if he can.

Good luck, too, to the club that takes the punt on him. It’s a big call. There are never any guarantees that a former drug addict won’t relapse, as Demetriou was at pains to point out.

But what about those half dozen players whose identity is so zealously kept quiet under the league’s policy, even from its chief executive?

They’ve all tested positive two more times than Cousins, but all that’s happened to them is that they’re being monitored under the AFL’s policy. We don’t know how, or how often, they are tested, so essentially they belong to a protected species that doesn’t include Cousins.

So what’s the solution? It’s two-pronged – more effective testing, and goodbye to the three-strikes policy.

The AFL should set up a system under which it picks three games every week and has tests done at random on a number of players (say four or five) from both teams.

That’s 24 or 30 players a week, not an unreasonable number to be within the AFL’s financial and logistic resources.

Players who test positive to performance-enhancing drugs should lose points under a scale to be drawn up similar to the one that governs on-field indiscretions, with suspensions to match.

Obviously previous offences would have to be taken into account when deciding the severity of each suspension, with serial offenders banished from the game altogether.

That’s what Cousins is facing if he slips up. And he won’t be under any illusions about that if and when he crosses the white line.

Fair enough. But he shouldn’t be Robinson Crusoe.