Outspoken Gold Coast president Tony Cochrane has been blasted for his views on a potential Tasmanian club by influential AFL figure Colin Carter.
A former AFL commissioner and Geelong president, Carter authored last year's report about the merits of a club being based in Tasmania.
As club presidents prepare in August to decide on the future of Australian football in Tasmania, debate has raged about adding a 19th club into the AFL.
Cochrane, long-time chair of the AFL's 17th team, has been the most vocal of leaders about the viability of a start-up club in the Apple Isle.
He has argued only a club relocated to Tasmania could work, saying he has a major problem with a 19th club.
But Carter took aim at Cochrane about the handouts and money given to the Gold Coast since the Suns came into the AFL in 2011.
"The size of the playing pool has doubled in the last 20 years so anybody who wants to talk about lack of players is nonsense," Carter told SEN.
"I find the comments of some of those other clubs mystifying.
"I can't even begin to fathom his (Cochrane's) attack on the proposition of a Tasmanian team on the basis that it can't be afforded.
"It seems to be 'we don't want another team like us', and that's a pretty weird argument to make.
"In arguing the Tasmanian team will be a drain on the competition, I think he's effectively saying we don't want another drain like my club is and I don't think their club is a drain, either."
Carter believes the Tasmanian bid's success should not be contingent on guaranteeing building a new stadium for the mooted club's arrival.
Instead, the 67-year-old thinks a new club could split games between existing grounds in Hobart and Launceston before a state-of-the-art stadium is built later.
