Former Melbourne Storm chief Brian Waldron, the so-called "chief rat" of that club's salary cap scandal revealed in 2010, now opines on sporting politics in a weekly Melbourne radio segment.

Ian Robson was chief executive at Essendon when that club ran its  dangerous and ultimately destructive drug program and yet less than a year after resigning was installed as the CEO of one of this country's biggest soccer franchises, Melbourne Victory.

Steven Trigg, the first AFL club chief to be suspended for a total player payments breach, returned to his old job six months later and when the heat became too great in Adelaide, was seconded to the troubled Carlton Football Club. The player manager involved in the Kurt Tippett affair, Peter Blucher, remains a key agent.

Wayne Carey, whose career in the game looked irreparable, returned after a lengthy sabbatical to emerge as a high-profile commentator and the list goes on.

In fact all of the above boast a common denominator. They all put their hands up and ultimately took responsibility for their offences.

And none attempted to fight their punishments. While a host of NRL commentators felt Waldron's eventual mea culpa was hopelessly conditional and while there remains among some circles a discomfort with Carey's profile, these stories should provide some comfort for Graeme Allan and Craig Lambert.

Australian rules football may have become a corporate giant and sport's most powerful industry in this country but it also remains a family. Few leave the fold forever. Some of James Hird's old teammates are still trying to bring him in just as behind the scenes a number of high-profile figures are working to resurrect the life of Daniel Chick and even Ben Cousins. Which is why Allan and Lambert were right to call a halt to their crazy line of defence emanating from the Lachie Whitfield incident.

Strongly advised that their story regarding an attempt to dupe a problematic girlfriend with a ruse regarding drugs would never fly,  they did the right thing by the player and the game and put their hands up. Even though deep down they feel their punishment was way too harsh.

But also they did the right thing by themselves. Hird remains in Coventry because he never truly admitted wrongdoing and continued to fight, hurting himself and his reputation as he dragged down his club and the competition and ultimately harming his players as well.

Another rogue operator, Ricky Nixon, remains outside the system because he self-destructed.

But while Allan and Lambert were unprofessional, made a poor decision and demonstrated a lack of understanding of the rules; their intentions were neither sinister nor unsporting.

Allan is famous for taking shortcuts in terms of due diligence but he has achieved too much success at too many clubs to leave the game in disgrace.

Surely the AFL community will find a rule for its life member should he want as much after his year has been served. Lambert could well survive at Brisbane but either way deserves another chance.

Now that those individuals have been sanctioned other questions remain. Including the strange behaviour of the AFL over the Whitfield affair. Just why a case that ultimately drew legal opinion from ASADA that all three individuals faced four-year anti-doping suspensions floundered for so many months of inactivity is disturbing.

AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan reportedly had no knowledge of the incident or the investigation and, according to Collingwood, at one stage during the second half of the 2016 season contacted the Magpies to sound out the possibility of extracting Allan from the club to send him to the then strife-torn Brisbane.

If the AFL had broken the back of the investigation by July, why was the case not referred back to ASADA until immediately after Fairfax Media broke the story at the start of September? While the move to crunch a series of plea bargains with Whitfield, Allan and Lambert appears the most pragmatic and sensible course, the previous head office inaction has never truly been explained.

And why is the league delaying its decision regarding GWS draft penalties? The discussion around the AFL board table last Tuesday is understood to have supported the notion that the club should be punished.

Although the Giants have continued to rail against that possibility claiming they were victims of two rogue operators, the AFL view is that Allan and Lambert were too high in the pecking order for the club to distance itself from them. The league's bosses would surely not baulk  at taking action against a club simply to avoid a fight.

The current position at head office is that legal counsel Andrew Dillon is still considering his next course of action despite the AFL's previous assertion that it would act upon the club immediately after it had dealt with the individuals. Surely it does not plan to strip the Giants of picks on the eve of the draft as it did 14 years ago to Carlton?

Until the AFL reveals its next move it cannot wash its hands of an incident that should have been so inconsequential and yet through a series of extremely poorly thought-out decisions, have damaged so many reputations and left the processes of the game's governing body open to question.