THE fallout from the ASADA drugs scandal at Cronulla will be so severe that the Sharks will be forced to relocate, says News Corp and Fox Sports journalist Paul Kent.

The comments come after AFL club Essendon, also under investigation by ASADA, were on Tuesday night hit with a two million dollar fine, among other serious sanctions, for bringing the game into disrepute.

Kent told Triple M's Grill Team on Wednesday morning that Cronulla’s days in the Shire would be numbered if the NRL followed the AFL lead and imposed a large fine on the Sharks.

"I think we would be looking at the Perth Sharks, the Central Coast Sharks or the Rockhampton Sharks," Kent said.

"We wouldn't be looking at the Cronulla Sharks any longer.

media_camera News Limited and Fox Sports journalist Paul Kent.

"Even right now, as we speak, Cronulla are on the verge of insolvency. The NRL do not want them to die for a variety of reasons.

"They want a 16 team competition, they need eight games a week to honour their television deal.

"But there's also a growing belief in the NRL, that we all know we've never addressed, in that nine teams in Sydney is too many.

"But you can't say to teams: 'Listen, you have to go'.

"If the NRL fine Cronulla two million dollars, essentially they're fining themselves because Cronulla's getting all their money from the NRL.

"But what [the NRL] would be able to say to Cronulla is, 'you now need this money to pay this fine … so we want a say in how the club is run'."

"In the AFL, the AFL runs all the clubs. It's like a McDonald's franchise. Head office runs the franchise. The NRL does not have that power. And if we go back to the early days of this investigation, (we see) the differences in how it was handled.

"Dave Smith has been very clever in saying: 'Listen, if we are actually going to run this as a company, the NRL needs to oversee the way clubs are being run'.

"So he's started putting steps in place to do that. That, basically, is going to start with Cronulla and more than likely end up with them relocating."

Originally published as Scandal-hit Sharks to relocate: Kent