Carlton has asked its AFL players to take massive pay cuts to avoid breaching the salary cap again and secure the club's future.

Blues president Ian Collins met with senior players on Monday, asking them to put the club's interests first and to accept "critical and radical" wage cuts believed to total about $800,000.

The Blues must lodge their player payments estimates by December 6.

Clearly shocked at the magnitude of the punishment for previous salary cap breaches, they are desperate to ensure they are under the limit in 2003.

As the highest-paid player at the club, Anthony Koutoufides would be principal among those urged to accept less pay.

Collins said it would be a "major task" to fit under the cap in 2003 due to the freewheeling manner in which contracts were negotiated under the previous administration headed by John Elliott.

"We are annoyed and extremely disappointed with the previous negotiation and management process in relation to player contracts and we are forced to take this extremely critical and radical step to preserve our club's credibility," Collins said.

"The club has been severely penalised due to past practices in disregard of the Total Player Payment rules in the period up to 2002 and it is imperative we manage our business to ensure that we remain within the Total Player Payments in the future.

"(Ruckman) Matthew Allan's decision to remain at Carlton on basically the minimum salary has demonstrated what the Carlton Football Club means to him and we are hopeful that the balance of our senior players respond accordingly."

Carlton was fined $930,000 and stripped of its first four picks in Sunday's national draft, its first pick in the December pre-season draft plus its opening two selections in next year's national draft.

The Blues paraded their new draft picks, including ex-Kangaroos veteran Mick Martyn, at a training session this morning.

The club sold several hundred memberships on the first day of sale as it embarked upon a grassroots supporter campaign to rescue the league's most successful club from financial oblivion.

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