Brendan Fevola has declared his innocence, but the AFL has its finger on the trigger poised to end the wayward Lion's career pending the outcome of a police investigation into the latest scandal to engulf the 29-year-old.
Fevola has been suspended indefinitely by the Brisbane Lions over allegations that he indecently exposed himself to a woman at a community football function last weekend.
In a brief statement, Fevola's management said their client would co-operate fully with any investigation by the Queensland Police or the AFL.
"Brendan categorically denies any inappropriate behaviour in relation to the alleged incident," the statement said.
AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said however that the league was extremely concerned by the allegation and is taking the complaint against Fevola very seriously.
He said that to the best of his knowledge, alcohol was not a factor in the complaint against Fevola.
Anderson said the league was keen to conduct its own inquiries into the matter and had spoken to the complainant but needed to be careful not to interfere with the formal police investigation.
"It's extremely disappointing that we find ourselves dealing with a matter like this," Anderson said.
"There's provision for all sorts of things under the AFL rules but the important thing is that we get to the bottom this."
"The AFL takes extremely seriously respectful and appropriate behaviour towards women by players and everyone within the industry."
Asked whether this could mean the end for Fevola who has a long list of off-field misdemeanours, most of them alcohol-related, Anderson said: "It's not appropriate for me to speculate on what might be the outcome of our investigation."
"There's obviously a range of sanctions available but ... we need to get the facts straight and then we'll deal with that side of it."
"We certainly would like to proceed with our investigation as soon as we physically can but we're concerned not to interfere with the police investigation."
Anderson said he was confident that this latest episode was not indicative of wider problems within player ranks.
"Without prejudging what has actually occurred I think it's wrong to take the fact of a complaint against one player as a slur on the playing group as a whole," he said.
"But it is incredibly disappointing to be dealing with a complaint of this nature against one of our players."