PORT Adelaide would sack Jake King on the spot for continuing to socialise with former Bandidos boss Toby Mitchell if the Tigers forward was a Power player, Port chairman David Koch says.
Koch's comments follow AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou's statement on Thursday that Richmond should reconsider its stance that King was free to associate with whoever he wanted in his own time, arguing King was risking the Tigers' reputation and putting himself in a vulnerable position through his friendship with Mitchell.
Koch did not pull any punches on Friday morning when speaking on his Channel Seven breakfast show Sunrise about how Port would have dealt with King after he was caught socialising with Mitchell three times in the past seven months, most recently at a Docklands café in January.
"We would get rid of him, absolutely, as simple as that," Koch said.
"Our leadership group would tear him to shreds and say, 'You either stop doing this or you're not part of our group anymore'."
Demetriou said he had not spoken to Richmond CEO Brendon Gale about his stance, but he would.
"My counsel to Richmond would be I think you do have a role in saying to your players who you should and shouldn’t associate with," Demetriou told Channel Seven.
"And I think Jake King should seriously consider who he associates with and not put at risk the reputation of his club or put himself in a vulnerable position."
King first tested his club's patience when he invited Mitchell into the club's rooms following the Tigers' round 20 win over the Brisbane Lions at the MCG last season.
At the time Demetriou said the forward's decision was "pretty stupid", expressing concern people of certain backgrounds had the potential to "infiltrate" the code.
Richmond, meanwhile, went on to warn its entire playing list not to associate with criminals in any way.
It did not, however, have "hard and fast rules" about who players could associate with.
King was then seen socialising with Mitchell at a women's lingerie American football game in December, with Richmond expressing its disappointment.
When the 29-year-old met with Mitchell in January, however, the Tigers said he was free to choose his own company in his own time.
"Who Jake mixes with in his own time and in his own private capacity, that's up to him and they're the choices he makes," Gale told 3AW.
"But at the end of the day they're choices he has to make and he has to live with."
Demetriou said footballers associating with criminals was a serious issue because the League had intelligence that suggested groups were attempting to "infiltrate" the code.
"[They want to] jeopardise the integrity of the game, whether it’s to do with information sharing, gambling, illicit drugs, performance enhancing drugs," he said.
"The world’s changed, there’s performance enhancing drugs, there’s organised crime, there is big betting and gambling on our game.
"Once supporters lose faith and don’t believe the game they are watching is pure then you’re in big trouble and it’s a long way back.
"We had something (the Essendon supplements scandal) that came very close to that last year."
