REVELATIONS of rampant performance-enhancing drug use in American Major League Baseball are no great surprise. The sport's administration has dragged its feet on the drugs issue and must now take responsibility for the damage and humiliation caused by the findings of the Mitchell Report.

In his 2004 book, Inside the Olympics, former WADA chairman, Dick Pound, described MLB's testing program as "…worse than a joke. It is a travesty". Incredibly, this was after pressure from US Congress had brought about an improvement in the sport's testing standards following the drug-linked death of a young player in 2003.

One can only imagine the trauma caused to lovers of America's national sport. It seems from this distance that it would be like waking up to a corresponding report on the AFL and reading names such as Ablett, Lockett, Hird, Buckley and Judd.

Apart from the pain and disillusionment, the damage to the credibility of the code would be inestimable.

It underlines again the absolute and non-negotiable commitment required of all sports to the battle against drug-cheating. The commitment must exist at many levels. The Mitchell Report criticises not just players, but team officials, the players' union, and the man at the very top: the Commissioner of Baseball.

"There was a collective failure to recognise the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on," is the report's damning finding. Predictably, the commissioner, Bud Selig, maintained a previous assertion that leaders of the sport had done all they could to combat the problem. He acknowledged, however, that: "If we were naive and missed some signals … I'll accept that responsibility."

How can the head of a major, professional sport admit to naivety on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in the 21st century and retain his job? This is, after all, an issue as critical as exists in modern sport.

In this part of Australia, football is the baseball-equivalent in terms of its place in the collective sporting psyche. It is also a sport that has been wrestling with drug-related issues in recent times.

There are lessons for the AFL from what has happened in baseball. First, it should rid itself of complacency; of any notion that it could never happen here. The fact is, if it hasn't already happened here it almost certainly will.

As the stakes rise for players, the incentives grow. So does awareness of the possibilities for improvement. So does the affordability of the kinds of drugs that can improve performance and remain difficult to detect. So do contacts within the world of sport. Sports administrators must not deceive themselves as Bud Selig appears to have done.

The AFL is too ready to comfort itself with the fact that it is WADA-compliant and has only ever uncovered one offender. Many WADA-compliant sports are far from clean. Many cheats continue to elude WADA. The league must work with its players' association and its clubs to search for every way to protect football's integrity.

There are suggestions now that baseball might impose stringent penalties on the teams of players found guilty of doping. It is something for football to consider. After all, if an administrator who cheats the salary cap can bring such an outcome on his club, why should drug-cheating be any different? Perhaps such penalties could extend to administrators and players who know of corruption occurring within their sport and don't report it.

The AFL could also benefit by seeking to bring a more global perspective to its treatment of the drugs issue. There is, by now, more than enough football, corporate, industrial, and legal know-how at the AFL Commission table. A contributor from the environment of Olympic sport might provide valuable input on many issues, not least of them the matter of doping.

The bottom line in all of this is that sport could eventually be destroyed if it is not protected from the scourge of drug-cheating. The rules of most games now make it clear that there is no place for performers who are guilty of it.

There is also no place for administrators who fail to address it as rigorously as they are able.