AFL chief Andrew Demetriou this week responded to criticism brought up in this column on Monday, that the governing body doesn't use its own surveillance system at matches.

He said that it would require 50 cameras to do it properly and that could not be justified given the infrequent nature of behind-the-play incidents, such as the Steven Baker-Jeff Farmer clash, that aren't caught on tape.

Ignoring the "mayonnaise" put on the half-century figure, it totally sidesteps the real question, which is: when it comes to video footage of its own game, how can the AFL continue to avoid taking responsibility for policing it properly?

To state the obvious, behind-the-play incidents happen away from the action because players are trying to get away with something.

So while Channel Ten would have loved to have "fluked" having a nice isolated camera shot of the Farmer incident, in the same way Brodie Holland was "sprung" belting Paul Williams in late 2003, the reality is the network doesn't suffer for not having it. But the game does for not having any visual evidence to present to the tribunal.

While there is a "minimum standard" clause in the AFL's broadcasting arrangement, believed to be an eight-camera coverage, it raises the question as to what the fallout would have been with the Ben Johnson-Daniel Bell incident had it not been captured so thoroughly on the "bells and whistles" coverage that prime-time Friday night football now provides.

Even allowing for the AFL's lauded head-high crackdown, was it really the worst head-high incident of all time, as the tribunal penalty suggested? Or was it the one captured the most graphically?

Channel Seven had at least six cameras on the incident, including its multi-million-dollar "extreme-slo-mo", which ensured it was captured so efficiently and with such clarity that Collingwood, a club that rarely backs away from appealing in tribunal cases, accepted the decision.

Magpie president Eddie McGuire told radio SEN that it would be "churlish" to challenge the verdict, and there's no reason not to take that statement at face value.

But if the vision was of poor, instead of brilliant quality, his club would indeed have had a responsibility to take it on (assuming, of course, that Johnson would have received eight games in the first place without the what-you-see-is-what-you-get evidence).

With its vast playing surfaces and large number of players away from the action at any given point, AFL football is possibly the hardest mainstream sport in the world to thoroughly police.

So Demetriou's point — that covering every nook and cranny of an arena would not justify the prohibitive costs of what are thankfully very occasional incidents — is not without merit.

Yet for the same reasons that police patrol the backstreets knowing that although it won't eliminate crime, the more they're seen, the more doubt is placed in the mind of those thinking of transgressing, the AFL needs players to know that big brother is watching … more often than they do now.

Ralph Horowitz is a former producer at The Footy Show, Sunday Footy Show and 3AW Football.