The explosive claims were published today by the Herald Sun on the eve of the Australian Football League (AFL) due to start at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Eddie McGuire, President of the Melbourne-based Collingwood, claimed the club could not confirm on the report due to a confidentiality agreement between the AFL and players.

“It’s a question without any basis in fact but as far as I know it could well be the truth because we don’t find out,” McGuire told the Australian Associated Press.

“We get piecemeal information.

"But until the clubs have actually got some control over it there’s no point talking to the clubs.

"It’s an AFL and AFL Players Association matter.”

Collingwood are Australia's best-supported AFL club with more than 80,000 members and they have won 15 league titles. 

Two of Collingwood's players, Josh Thomas and Lachie Keeffe, are currently serving two-year bans after testing positive for clenbuterol. a drug normally given to asthma sufferers. 

After they were banned, Collingwood made changes were made to tighten the drugs code and move to harsher penalties.

In January, 34 past and present players from another AFL club, Essendon, were banned following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

WADA appealed after the  AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal ruled there was there was insufficient evidence to find the players guilty of offences arising from the club’s controversial 2012 supplements programme.

The case was born out of an investigation in February 2013 by the Australian Crime Commission, which released the Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport report alleging widespread doping in Australian sport.

As a result, in June 2014, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority had initiated action against the players, via the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, alleging doping through the use of the banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4.