The AFL has cleared Western Bulldogs player Lachie Hunter of a betting incident, accepting his explanation that a VFL-listed player was to blame.

Bulldogs president Peter Gordon has strongly defended Hunter and blasted initial media reporting of the story, which broke last Thursday night.

Hunter went to a club official during the March 14 pre-season loss to Melbourne, saying his account had been used to bet on the game.

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Under strict AFL anti-gambling rules, Hunter would most likely have faced a lengthy suspension if found guilty of placing the bet.

The VFL player involved remains anonymous.

The league added that currently, there is nothing to stop VFL players betting on AFL games.

“The investigation found that player Hunter had not breached AFL rules,” the league said in a statement.

“Further, when Hunter was aware his account had been used by another person – a member of the Western Bulldogs VFL team – to place a bet on an AFL match, he alerted the club immediately, and cooperated fully with the investigation.”

Gordon said any player would have struggled with the incident and the attention it received.

“I don’t think any young player who went through that would have enjoyed it,” Gordon said at Wednesday night’s AFL season launch.

“It’s regrettable that his character was derided in a way that was entirely undeserved.”

Gordon also defended Hunter’s conduct in the incident.

“Lachie, in fact, reported this to the club and the club reported it to the AFL before anyone knew whether the bet was a winning bet,” he said.

“You couldn’t have any more stark evidence of the complete lack of any moral turpitude in the whole thing.”

Gordon said the club would conduct its own review.

“We do think the issue of betting policy and gambling generally is one we want our players to be on top of and to have a broader understanding about,” he said.

“We want to use the opportunity to make sure all our players learn from it and grow from it.

“There are a few different elements to this issue – there’s compliance with the requirements of the policies of the AFL regarding gambling on football.

“But there’s also the broader issue of young men getting very large sums of money for the first time in their lives and how they handle it.”

Gordon made it clear he was unimpressed with how some sections of the media reported the story when it first broke.

“We warned the media last week not to jump to conclusions and suggested it was very likely that precisely this would be the outcome,” he said.

“We’re pretty disappointed, I have to say, with some of the more hysterical media commentary that came out from a couple of sources in the first 24 hours that this hit.

“I don’t think that was fair to Lachie Hunter or the Hunter family, or the VFL player, or to the Western Bulldogs, or may I say to the AFL as a whole.”

-AAP