Buried away among the run-of-the-mill football news yesterday - "Collingwood to appoint 22nd assistant coach", "Essendon to buy Tullamarine Airport for new pilates and aromatherapy centre", and "Channel Seven wins exclusive rights to televise players in post-match showers" - was a tidbit that might have rung alarm bells at AFL headquarters, and caused a shiver down the back of Peter Knights.

One of Port Adelaide's commercial partners, VIP Home Services, announced that it would increase its financial involvement in the club from 2012 - but only if Port recruited two high-profile (and high-priced) players currently on the market, Brendan Fevola and Leon Davis.

Bill Vis, the founder and chairman of VIP, says recruiting Davis and Fevola would increase crowd numbers and make sponsorship for the club more viable.

So what he was proposing to Port was blackmail of a sort: we'll give you the money you so desperately need if you deliver us the players we so desperately want. Never mind if Fevola and Davis don't fit into coach Matthew Primus' short-term plans or, worse, if their arrival actually damages the delicate eco-system being built up at Alberton after a horror 2011.

This is where the worlds of off-field commerce and on-field competition collide. The marketers and PR merchants might swoon at the idea of that lovable rogue Fevola pulling on a teal, black and white guernsey, or Davis posing for a dozen photo opportunities in the lead-up to the new season, but Primus might just as easily be appalled by that prospect.

It's true that AFL clubs' football departments can't just be focussed on wins, losses and ladder positions these days; they have a duty to sell the club, drive memberships and get involved in promotional campaigns.

But surely the line has to be drawn at this suggestion from Mr Vis: that he, as a club sponsor, calls the shots on the recruiting agenda.

It raised the spectre of that infamous Brisbane Bears scenario during the 1988 season when then president Paul Cronin was adamant that the coach, Peter Knights, play star recruit Warwick Capper even though the full-forward was woefully out of form and struggling to get a kick, never mind a goal.

With an eye on the club's threadbare fan base, and potential support from the Gold Coast white-shoe brigade, Cronin told Knights he needed his expensive but misfiring recruit on the field. All the time. Recounting that episode, Knights said Cronin told him: "Under no circumstances will an asset like Warwick Capper be running around in the seconds."

Knights wanted his players picked on form - not unreasonably - and felt his authority would be totally undermined if his players found out Capper was being selected for reasons that had nothing to do with football and everything to do with marketing.

Knights approached the Bears' private owner, Christopher Skase, to gain permission to do what was in the on-field team's interests. Eventually, the out-of-form spearhead was dropped. And during the next season Knights was sacked.

Anyway, that's the historical precedent for this current Port Adelaide situation.

Now a well-heeled sponsor is starting to throw his weight around - as Cronin did at Carrara in 1988 - and putting pressure on the club to recruit players with celebrity profiles and pulling power, but not necessarily the cohesive leadership abilities to pull a young squad out of a deep rut.

Vis' call comes a week after joint major sponsors My ATM and Soaring Securities withdrew their sponsorship, and on the same day the Adelaide Advertiser reported Port is owed $350,000 by My ATM.

In a club statement, Port chief executive Keith Thomas said: "V.I.P. chairman Bill Vis is a passionate and loyal supporter of sport in South Australia and particularly our club. His comments [on Tuesday] clearly reflect his desire to see Port Adelaide succeed both on and off the field, and the value he places on his commercial involvement with the club.

"Whilst that passion can't and won't extend to influencing decisions in regards to recruitment and team selection, having spoken to Bill [on Tuesday], we look forward to further advancing the club's relationship with V.I.P. next year and beyond."

So, mercifully, Port appears to be putting commonsense ahead of cash, and pragmatic thinking ahead of PR. But one wonders in these straightened times for a number of AFL clubs, where any new revenue stream is welcomed, whether this situation will be just the tip of the iceberg.