Ben Cousins has defended his gangland associations as 'sincere friendships' as it did not take long for the confessed drug addict to find himself embroiled in fresh controversy on his first day as a Richmond player.

The 2005 Brownlow Medalist fronted up for his first press conference since joining the Tigers in Tuesday's pre-season draft, with news of his latest gangland association splashed all over the front of Melbourne newspapers on Wednesday.

Cousins was named in court by police as an associate of Angelo Venditti, who is charged with ordering the contract killing of Paul Kallipolitis during Melbourne's underground war in 2002.

It is not the first time the former West Coast Eagles captain has been in trouble over his gangland connections after he was quizzed by Western Australian police in 2005 over his knowledge of a nightclub brawl involving well-known Perth gangland identity John Kizon.

Cousins said on Wednesday he was unaware he had been named in court regarding his association with Venditti but did admit he knew him.

"Through the hard times I have found people love to link me with other people who have found themselves in hard times," he said.

"But what doesn't get reported is a lot of those relationships and associations that I have with those people have been borne out of sincere friendship and a common thread that we have found ourselves in hard times."

"In a lot of those cases they have been people that have played pretty significant roles in me getting to where I am today (on the road to recovery from drug addiction)."

Cousins said he was not the only person in the football industry who knew Venditti.

"I know him reasonably well, along with a number of people in the footy industry," Cousins said.

"But I am sure my association or friendship or contact with him has nothing to do with anything of a criminal nature and as far as I am aware he (Venditti) has not been convicted yet but that is not for me to go into."

However Cousins said he soon looked forward to the day when his football rather his notorious past and his controversial friendships made headlines.

"I am hopefully looking forward to today being about putting the past in the past and moving on and it won't be long before the things that get spoken about me are more related to football and less about stuff like that," he said.