Toby Greene has apologised to his teammates after he was hit with a five-match ban and $5,000 fine for breaching club protocols.

“Toby’s put his hand up, he knows he’s stuffed up,” co-captain Callan Ward said on Friday as he addressed the media alongside coach Leon Cameron and fellow co-captain Phil Davis.

“We’ve got some strong protocols and strong rules here. He drank when he shouldn’t have, he didn’t contact the club after he was in trouble, so he’s put his hand up and apologised to the group, he’s extremely upset.”

The club’s leadership group and coach imposed a five-match ban and $5,000 fine on Greene for drinking alcohol while injured and failing to notify the club after he was arrested and charged by police on Monday night.

Cameron said Greene will learn from his mistakes but that the sanctions send a strong message that the club would not tolerate this kind of behaviour.

“We want to let everyone to know we have really strong values and behaviours and everyone has to adhere to that regardless of who you are - whether you’re a coach, a player or administrator, and that’s how you build a strong culture.

“He’s (Greene) done the wrong thing, he hasn’t lived up to the values and the behaviours that this club wants to stand for but we’ll continue to educate our young players over and over again. 

“To have a really strong culture, we’ll continue to do that.”

AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou supported the club’s sanctions on Melbourne radio on Friday morning.

“Our policy is if these things are dealt with in-house appropriately then the AFL has no role in it,” Demetriou said.

“We have actually welcomed the decision from the perspective of that it sends a very clear message. If you’ve got the player accepting it, you’ve got the player-leadership group - his peers - who are determining the sanction, that seems appropriate.

“When you have peers determining what is right and wrong, that’s a very strong message.”