Gold Coast CEO Travis Auld has brushed aside suggestions that the Suns are starting to lose their new club shine in the wake of the Nathan Bock betting investigation.
Vice-captain Bock has been suspended for the first two matches of next season and slapped with a hefty $10,000 fine for breaching the AFL's strict gambling code.
The former Adelaide defender revealed to a friend and family member that he would be starting up forward in the Suns' Round 24 match with Hawthorn at Metricon Stadium.
The information leak led to him being backed in from $101 to $21 to slot the game's opening goal - which he did - and a number of undisclosed bets won a total of around $40,000.
It is the second scandal to involve a member of the Suns' leadership group, after Campbell Brown partook in a bar-room brawl in Thailand in September which also involved Maverick Weller, Joel Wilkinson and Jacob Gilbee.
Gold Coast saw fit to strip Brown of his role as deputy vice-captain in that instance, but won't impose any further sanctions on Bock for his betting blunder.
Of the eight uncontracted players the Suns snapped up ahead of their debut season, two have now been tangled up in off-field controversy, and one, Nathan Krakouer, has quit.
Auld, who has played a significant part in developing and directing the expansion club's culture, said it was inevitable that some players would make headlines for the wrong reasons.
"We're a real football club. We have all the challenges other football clubs have. I wouldn't say the gloss has come off us," he said.
"We want to be known as a club that's not about gloss - we want to be known as a genuine football club that's engaged with its community, that has players that behave in a way that we're proud of."
"I think we can say that's definitely the case but from time to time, we're going to have incidents, issues that happen. That's absolutely normal."
"The way we deal with those is the way we want to be judged as a football club."
Bock has found himself in the centre of some stinging criticism from all sections of football, particularly after Collingwood's Heath Shaw and Nick Maxwell and Essendon assistant coach Dean Wallis were caught up in betting scandals earlier in the year.
But Auld said there was no need to strip the former All-Australian of his leadership role.
"All throughout the investigation Nathan has been open and honest and acted in a way that, as a football club, we would wish our leaders to act," he said.
"He takes his leadership responsibilities really to heart and what's important when they do have incidents like this, they then use this as an opportunity to educate our playing group."
"That's what leaders do, that's the way they act and day-to-day that's the way we'll judge them."
Bock said the incident wouldn't affect his standing amongst his team-mates.
"I feel like I'm a pretty strong leader around the footy club and I'm probably going to educate the younger boys on how easily this sort of stuff can get out of hand," he said.