AFL Victoria Wimmera development manager Geoff Burdett was 'shocked and shattered' after hearing of the drug scandal that has engulfed his former club of Essendon.
Burdett, who played 37 games with the Bombers between 1976 and 1981, said it could be devastating to the sport if the drug allegations facing Essendon were true.
"Football has been a great sport for a lot of years and it will continue to be, but it has the potential to taint it a bit," he said.
"If players have turned to performance enhancing drugs to get an edge it's quite sad.
"But if it is the case, they've just got to get rid of those blokes and put kids in that want to play for the club, for the jumper and not for the money."
Geoff Burdett, centre, pictured with teammate Tim Watson at Essendon training in 1981
Burdett said he would address the North Ballarat Rebels Wimmera development groups about the matter during Monday's training session.
"We definitely need to have a talk about it," he said.
Wimmera Football League chief commissioner John Smith was 'absolutely confident' the league was 100 per cent clean of performance-enhancing drugs.
Mr Smith said in more than 12 years in the league's top job, there were no reports of players taking illegal substances.
"We are certainly not aware of any performance-enhancing substances being used in any way," he said.
"We don't know of it and we would have heard of it, that's for sure."
The man at the centre of the scandal, sports scientist Steve Dank, has been sacked by the club and fitness boss Dean Robinson has been stood down pending the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority-AFL investigation into alleged use of banned supplements at the Bombers during the 2012 season.