WHEN it comes to sportsmen behaving badly, Gavin Freeman has seen it all. He's a sports psychologist who has worked with problem players — the drinkers and the late-night fighters — from the National Rugby League and the Australian Rugby Union.

When it comes to errant Carlton forward Brendan Fevola, who was last night cleared to play Richmond on Thursday but fined $10,000 and given a stark ultimatum to either end his "alcohol related incidents" or be sacked immediately, Freeman knows how he would start any psychological treatment.

First, he would debunk the perception that all AFL players are role models in the community. A few are, he said, but most are not.

"The notion that elite athletes are role models can be a real burden," said Freeman. "My personal belief is that they are not role models, they are athletes. They are no more a role model than a top CEO of a top company.

"You've got to ask yourself is an AFL player truly, really a role model for younger people? Would they still be a role model if they were not an elite athlete? The answer in most cases is no."

The pressure of community expectations — especially in the heightened atmosphere of a Melbourne-based AFL club — could adversely affect a player's off-field behaviour, he said. "The first thing to go under pressure is common sense. All that happens is that you revert to learned behaviours and get yourself into trouble."

Second, Freeman said, he would go right through the club with a fine-toothed psychological comb. This is how he treated a 2006 case with a badly behaved star of a rugby code in Sydney.

Freeman said he would start by interviewing the CEO of the club on issues around off-field behaviour. Then he would go through the leadership group and ask them "what they wanted to be said about their team through the season, how they wanted to be perceived, how they wanted people to feel about them".

Then, days later, he would talk to the player. "It would be geared towards finding a solution for the team, not a solution for the individual," Freeman said. He said an approach like Carlton's would be good in that Fevola was not ostracised from the team and was included in discussions on his alcohol problem and his future.

To former Melbourne Brownlow medallist Jim Stynes, AFL club leadership groups were important now because they had "ownership" of team issues. Yet he said a hard line on alcohol-related issues was best. Steve Johnson at Geelong was suspended for five games at the start of last season and "it was the making of the guy".

Freeman, however, said it's about a club's attitudes from the ground up to the top and about realising the psychological realities of life inside the "glass box" of celebrity driven sports culture.

"They might want to take responsibility for their actions and it all sounds good on paper," he said, "but they don't have the skills when the pressure is on."