AFL great Luke Hodge says a line in the sand has been drawn following the three-match ban handed down to Richmond premiership defender Nathan Broad, suggesting that the next player to commit a similar offence to that of the Tiger deserves a considerably heftier penalty.

Richmond - in combination with the AFL - suspended West Australian backman Broad for the first three matches of the 2018 home and away season for sending a photo of a topless woman wearing a premiership medal, taken on the night of Richmond's grand final win. Broad did not have permission to send the photo of the woman, whose head was not in the image, although while the photo went viral no charges were laid following a Victoria Police investigation into the matter.

The league said it supported the length of the ban, but while Hodge didn't say it had been overly lenient, he said players should learn from Broad's mistake, or else incur the AFL's wrath.

"People, and players especially, they've got to be smarter and respect ladies better than that," Hodge told ABC radio on Monday as he promoted his newly-released book The General.