Former Australian track and field athlete Dave Culbert believes Dustin Fletcher should not be recognised as a 400 game player.
Culbert, now a prominent sports media broadcaster, said on SEN radio on Wednesday morning, that by definition, due to the nature of the ban, the games played by Fletcher and the other banned players in 2015 should not be counted on record.
“When you look at the finding there’s a two-year period of ineligibility. They served an interim suspension when they took themselves out of training, but the suspension backdates to March 2015,” Culbert said on SEN radio.
“Therefore all of the games that the players played in the 2015 season, they’re ineligible.
“By definition the games that they’ve played don’t count, so Dustin Fletcher isn’t a 400 game player.
“Those games have to be removed from their record and therefore Dustin Fletcher doesn’t get to 400 games.
“This isn’t an easy thing to say, it’s not a nice thing to say, you don’t say it with any joy, but these are the facts of what happens when players breach anti-doping rules.”
Fletcher retired at season's end on exactly 400 games and he is one of only four men in the history of the VFL/AFL competition to reach the milestone, along with Michael Tuck, Kevin Bartlett and Brent Harvey.