The real chicken seemingly plays the role of a woman. The storyline becomes increasingly menacing as the two characters go to the pub — he has beer, she has white wine — and end up having sex in the toilet. The final scenes show the real chicken carcass being hurled against a wall, then run over by a van before the rubber chicken returns and simulates fornication again.

A sign of North Melbourne's major sponsor, Mazda, is featured at the start of the video. The backing track is Move Bitch by American rapper Ludacris. No North Melbourne players, coaches or staff are seen, however simulated sex acts take place in the locker belonging to senior player Brady Rawlings, and on a desk of a North Melbourne staff member. Arocca ordered that the video, The Adventures of Little Boris, be removed from YouTube after being alerted to it by The Age and having its content described to him by the AFL.

Arocca, who was returning from a speaking engagement in country Victoria last night, said: "Foolishly, one of the younger members of our group placed it on his Facebook (page). "It then found its way onto YouTube. It's now been removed. I'm furious to say the least that it's gotten out, though I haven't had the advantage of seeing it."

AFL corporate affairs manager Brian Walsh saw the video and last night described it as "infantile and inappropriate". He said the AFL would monitor North Melbourne's handling of the matter. Arocca said he would investigate the matter today to "get to the bottom of one, why it was done, two, why it was disseminated, and three, what appropriate counselling and or action I need to take as the CEO … We're embarrassed that it's gotten out, we have taken steps to remove it from the source and hopefully it won't go any further." Arocca said he would come up with a response "internally and if necessary externally".

The handing out of a plastic toy, known as Little Boris, is a weekly routine at North. Assistant coach Darren Bewick, a former Essendon player nicknamed Boris, awards it to the person judged to have committed the biggest gaffe of the week. The Age is not suggesting Bewick had anything to do with the video or its dissemination. The film was posted on YouTube about a month ago and was viewed nearly 200 times before it was removed.

Phil Cleary, a former footballer and long-time campaigner on violence against women, said: "It just bristles with degradation of women. Don't they get it?" he said. "Here we have the North Melbourne Football Club allowing someone access to their clubrooms, to their offices, to produce a video that's just plain misogynistic. It's just full of women hatred — women are to be belittled, to be raped and to be degraded. It's sick." Invoking earlier incidents involving former Kangaroos skipper Wayne Carey, Cleary said the video came from a club "that has already had one of its most prominent players paraded in public and condemned by a range of people, and recently bared his soul about the very question of his attitude to women".

The North Melbourne video incident has come to light just days after Adelaide Crows champion Nathan Bock was charged by police for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. With PETER HANLON