CARLTON players Eddie Betts, Ryan Houlihan and Andrew Walker have been further punished by the club in the wake of the team's alcohol-fuelled unofficial Christmas breakup cruise, with the board slapping one-month training bans on all three and making them unavailable for the 2010 NAB Cup.
Betts was arrested in the Melbourne CBD for public drunkenness, while Houlihan and Walker were thrown out of Crown Casino for similar behaviour.
All three have already been fined $5000 by the Blues, the maximum allowable under the collective bargaining agreement, with club president Stephen Kernahan saying the trio went close to being sacked, and skipper Chris Judd admitting that binge drinking was a problem at the club.
Kernahan spoke at the club's Visy Park headquarters on Monday afternoon and said the board had been forced to act given the nature of the incidents despite preferring to remain uninvolved in football matters.
"They will be suspended from the club immediately for a period of one month, and during this time they will complete all training away from the rest of the player group, and with the Northern Bullants," he said of the three players.
"They will also be unavailable for selection for the NAB Cup, and we know this will impact on their preparation for the home and away season - clearly it was completely unacceptable."
Kernahan said he spoke with the players early on Monday morning and brought up the fact Brendan Fevola had been forced to leave the club in similar circumstances, issuing a warning that the players would not want to push the board any further.
Judd, who was on the cruise along with the rest of the leadership group, apologised to those affected by the players' behaviour.
He said the players took full responsibility for the debacle and promised action.
"While I can only offer words today, I pledge that our actions in the future will do justice to the commitment we have made to the club," he said.
"We give our word that it won't happen again, but it's impossible for players to talk their way out of a situation like this, you really have to behave your way out of it."
The captain highlighted that the incident exposed a dangerous culture of using alcohol as a reward, but said an alcohol ban was unlikely.
"What we have here is a group of players who go for pretty long periods of drinking no alcohol or next to no alcohol at all, and then use alcohol as a reward system for hard work or sacrifices they've made," Judd said.
"Using alcohol as a reward leads to binge drinking, and binge drinking really has no place at this club.
"We fully acknowledge that binge drinking is causing some pretty serious problems in the Australian community, and as role models, we don't want to be a part of that."
