Andrew Demetriou has emerged as a contender for the AFL Commission, with the game’s most influential club president arguing he would prove a formidable opponent to NRL boss Peter V’landys.
Collingwood president Jeff Browne has put forward the former AFL chief executive in conversations with other club presidents, with the topic of chairman Richard Goyder’s successor a key talking point among the clubs.
Singer Meat Loaf with former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou before the 2011 grand final.Credit: Eddie Jim
Although Goyder’s departure is not imminent, the presidents want to influence a commission succession plan. The prevailing view is that the next AFL chairman is not currently sitting on the commission. A number of club presidents, including Craig Drummond (Geelong), David Koch (Port Adelaide), Andrew Pridham (Sydney) and Luke Sayers (Carlton), have been raised as prospective future commission chairs.
A large group of the presidents met in Melbourne on Tuesday before the Australian Football Hall of Fame event, and before the clubs’ scheduled meeting with the commission and the AFL executive.
Although that meeting ended with a terse exchange between St Kilda president Andrew Bassat and Collingwood’s Browne over proposed changes to the father-son rule, the prime purpose of the gathering was to discuss the selection of the next AFL chairman.
Demetriou’s name was not raised at the meeting, but Browne has canvassed the prospect with a number of clubs, saying the former AFL boss boasts the leadership attributes, deep historic knowledge of the game and personal style to combat the NRL.
V’landys, chair of the Australian Rugby League Commission, has overseen strong gains for the NRL in NSW and particularly in western Sydney where Greater Western Sydney, despite a strong team and hundreds of millions of dollars in AFL funding, have failed to make a significant impact.
The NRL boss also oversees racing in NSW and has proved a thorn in the side of the AFL in its bid to unearth more playing fields suitable for Australian rules. He took the NRL to Las Vegas at the start of the season and fixtured an NRLW State of Origin game on the eve of Magic Round last month which outrated the Thursday night Gold Coast-Geelong game on May 16 nationally.
Several club bosses believe Demetriou’s chequered career after his departure from the AFL in 2014 would prove a significant impediment to Browne’s push. Demetriou resigned from Crown Resorts in 2021 after an investigation concluded Crown was unsuitable to operate a licence for its new Sydney casino in its current form. The report by NSW’s Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority identified a number of cultural failures and included money laundering.
Demetriou said the allegations aimed at him were “unfair and unjust” and vowed to defend his reputation. At the NSW inquiry into Crown casino in 2020 he faced questions about his role at Acquire Learning, where he was never officially listed as a director, but a member of the advisory board to the now collapsed vocational education group.
Demetriou ultimately paid $360,000 in a settlement with the liquidators of Acquire Learning in which he was a shareholder relating to repayments of shareholder loans taken out by his private company Katia.
Previously, he led the AFL Players Association before joining the AFL as football boss in 2000 and succeeding Wayne Jackson as chief executive in 2003. A strong supporter of Andrew Dillon’s campaign for the top job, Demetriou was a high-profile CEO whose time in the top job was punctuated by an occasionally outspoken, combative style and strong decision-making.
Drummond, who recently stepped down as Geelong president, is widely viewed by the clubs as a commission aspirant. The financial boss and former chief executive of Medibank Private has been replaced at the Cats by Grant McCabe, an appointment that led to the immediate resignation of long-serving director and vice president Diana Taylor, who had also presented to the board for the top job.
Of the other prospective club presidents, Koch has not ruled out a commission role, while Carlton’s Sayers is regarded as carrying too much baggage due to his former role as chief executive at the scandal-ridden PwC.
Sydney chairman Pridham has been sounded out by a number of presidents but has to date ruled out the prospect. Former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett, who still wields influence in AFL circles, has privately lobbied for Pridham, who is South Australian by birth, a leading investment banker and has chaired the Swans for more than a decade.
Browne and Kennett were contacted for comment.
Swans chairman Andrew Pridham.Credit: Peter Braig
Demetriou spoke on Thursday night on SEN radio, where he expressed sympathy for the clubs who said they had been blindsided by the prospect of immediate changes to the draft points system for northern and Next Generation academies and the father-son rule.
He batted off the possibility of succeeding Goyder as commission chairman, but did not rule it out. “It’s never crossed my mind,” he said.
Pridham, too, said he had not considered the role and remained wedded to his position at the helm of the Swans, who sit three games clear on the ladder and are premiership favourites. The club last year opened its new headquarters at Moore Park’s Royal Hall of Industries alongside the SCG.
However, he did take aim at the lobbying by clubs in the competitive balance review and in particular the push to make it tougher for clubs to access father-sons and academy players. St Kilda’s Bassat has led that campaign in the belief that the Saints have been disadvantaged by those draft inequalities.
“If any club thinks their lack of success is because of AFL rules then they’re misguided,” said Pridham. “My advice is that your focus has to be controlling what you can control, and that rule holds for football and business.
“Clubs should be focusing on culture and finance, and by culture, I mean getting the right people to your club. Yes, advocate, but you’re not going to be successful whingeing about perceived or real advantages held by other clubs. I’d go mad thinking that way.
“Father-son boasts a great history and romance and no, it’s not equal, but they’re not going to move Perth any closer to Melbourne, and we’re not going to suddenly be drafting the majority of our kids from NSW or Queensland.
“You can complain all you like, but focus on yourselves. I’ve done my share of whingeing, and I’ve worked out it doesn’t work. I moved my focus to setting up a great facility and attracting great people to my club.”
AFL chairman Richard Goyder at this week’s Australian Football Hall of Fame event.Credit: AFL Photos
Goyder has been the commission chairman since 2017. He has indicated a wish to remain in the top AFL job during the first few years of Dillon’s leadership and at least until the end of the 2025 season.
AFL club presidents have effectively pushed for a stronger say in the make-up of the game’s governing body, pushing for some years for a bigger football influence on the commission, which late last year appointed veteran club boss, northern states pioneer and former player Andrew Ireland and former Fremantle and Giants footballer Matt de Boer to the board.
The presidents also successfully took on the AFL last year over its initial refusal to indemnify the clubs over the threat of concussion legal action.
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