Despite facing a four-year ban for cocaine use while playing football in Turkey, Kerem Bulut remains determined to leave his mark on Australian football.
As he attempts to reduce the time he'll spend on the sidelines, the 27-year-old striker has set his sights on a return to the A-League and believes he could even solve the Socceroos' goal-scoring problems.
In an in-depth interview with Fox Sports' Simon Hill, Bulut also vowed he's done with drugs as he looks to prove people wrong about him.
“I am finished with drugs. It was a one-off thing, and it has destroyed my career," Bulut said.
"If I get the ban reduced to a year or fourteen months, then I could play again next season.
"I want to play in the A-League to prove my point to people here. Prove that I have changed, that it’s not just words. That I have matured into a man, and now I know right from wrong.
“I know I have the talent there, and it hurts me to watch the Socceroos because I played with a lot of those boys.
"We’re short on strikers, and I still think I could be that man.”
Bulut, who admitted he can't sleep at night as he faces the prospect of a four-year ban, also revealed he's considered getting his face tattoos removed in an attempt to clean up his image.
“My mum said to me ‘please son, that’s enough of the face tattoos - go and get them lasered off'," he said.
“I have been thinking about it. I am sick of the bad boy image.
"I have always been portrayed as being this gangster, but it isn’t true.”
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