THE AFL Players Association will insist that Ben Cousins be treated like any other player should the league pave the way next month for his return from a one-year exile.

With the AFL believed to be keen to attach a list of conditions to Cousins' re-entry, with target testing at the top of the list, AFLPA president Brendon Gale believes the 30-year-old should be bound simply to the league's drugs policy if the league declares him worthy of reinstatement.

League football operations manager Adrian Anderson will tomorrow present the AFL commissioners with the list of criteria Cousins must meet, and the information he must provide, before having his nomination considered by the commission next month.

Collingwood and St Kilda loom as the frontrunners to secure the former Brownlow medallist, although Cousins has not declared he has definite plans to play in the AFL again, only that he wants the commission to recognise the progress he has made in his rehabilitation from drug addiction.

Gale said should the AFL decide that Cousins is healthy enough to re-register, he deserved to start afresh, although it will be up to Cousins and his management to sign off on any proposed ongoing conditions.

"If Ben demonstrates that he's fit and healthy and able to play and abide by the rules — and the commission agrees that he is — then surely they'll be saying that they're happy for him to participate again," Gale said.

"If they ask him to play under special conditions, we're confident he'll satisfy any and all demands, but if and when he does play again, we think he should be treated like any other player in the competition.

"That's our point and that will be our consistent point. We think that if it's decided he's fit and able to play, he should be subject to the same rules and regulations and polices as any other player."

A similar case to Cousins' unfolded in America's National Basketball Association earlier this year. Forward Chris "Birdman" Andersen was reinstated in March after serving a two-year suspension for failing a test for an undisclosed banned substance.

Andersen, the first NBA player to be banned for drug use in seven years, had to provide proof that he had passed weekly drug tests over a 12-month period, and tested alcohol-free in the six months before his reinstatement to the New Orleans Hornets.

He also had to explain the circumstances surrounding his positive drugs test, prove that he had successfully completed a treatment program and be judged as having "the requisite qualities of good character and morality". It was not made clear whether he was bound by any other conditions once reinstated.

The decision to reinstate Andersen, who was in the first year of a $13 million contract when suspended, was made jointly by the NBA and its players' association. Under the association's collective bargaining agreement, players are disqualified after a fourth positive test for performance-enhancing drugs and suspended after a first positive test for "drugs of abuse."