Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. In the first instalment of a series on AFL powerbrokers, we take a peek inside the corporate boxes at Geelong, and find out what they get for their money.
Rebecca Maddern, former premiers Ted Baillieu and Steve Bracks, Cotton On founder Nigel Austin, and deputy PM Richard Marles.Credit: Steve Kiprillis
Nestled in the members wing of the Charles Brownlow Stand at Geelong’s GMHBA Stadium sits a palatial corporate box decked out with leather couches and marble bars.
It has a private door, a special security guard and a large decking area for guests to watch the Cats in action as they mingle in the fresh air.
The grandiose box belongs to one of Geelong Football Club’s biggest backers, retail giant Cotton On, a long-time supporter that became the official apparel sponsor in 2016.
It is a private box for private people. On match days, the fashion brand’s “reclusive” founder Nigel Austin and his publicity shy cousin and business partner Ash Hardwick host up to 50 guests, ranging from clients and staff to family and friends. They even provide face painting for the kids.
When the Cats offered up 11 new level two corporate boxes in their showpiece Brownlow Stand – at $60,000 each a year – the Cotton On crew insisted on fitting out the space themselves.
They enlisted designer Greg Natale and spent more than $1 million on what observers say is the equal of any corporate box in the world.
While Cotton On’s leaders enjoy the most decorated seats in the house – some say they have a better view of the ground than Chris Scott’s coach’s box – their backing does not buy them influence at the selection table or a hotline to the board.
Cats CEO Steve Hocking might poke his head in during a game, or send an injured player through to say hello, but that’s where the special treatment begins and ends.
This distance between benefactors and governance, it seems, has been one of the secrets to the Cats’ sustained success – six grand final appearances and four premierships since the club clawed its way out of financial ruin at the turn of the century.
Coach Chris Scott and Joel Selwood greet fans at Geelong with the 2022 flag. Credit: Getty Images
The practice became entrenched with the appointment of Frank Costa as club president in 1998 and the arrival of chief executive Brian Cook from Perth the following year.
They had a stable board, kept past players at a distance, absorbed independent coterie groups – who have been notorious at AFL clubs for wanting to have a say when they hand over their fundraising cheques – and installed a sense of trust with their partners.
They courted politicians, who have pledged $380 million in stadium grants, and benefited from the backing of local families, including a $10 million donation from Costa’s widow Shirley as recently as last year.
It’s a simple formula: “You back the club, we’ll run it”.
The line of command
Power players behind AFL clubs often do not want to draw attention to their influence. But we spoke to four sources familiar with Geelong networks, who were not in a position to speak publicly, to build a profile of the backers who help shape the club with their wealth, political or corporate connections, and how they are kept at arm’s length from the Cats’ formidable football operation.
Then Cats president Frank Costa and CEO Brian Cook talk to former No.1 ticket holder Daryl Somers in the dressing rooms after the Cats lost the 2008 grand final.Credit: Paul Rovere
While club boss Hocking, who took over from Cook in 2022, donned the blue and white hoops across a 199-game career, the Cats do not have a former player on the board.
They are one of the few AFL clubs without a football director.
“That is good governance. It can muddy the role of the board,” one source said.
Past players are supporters, not agitators, who are provided with their own game-day function room. It’s extremely rare to hear of a past Cats champion heaping public scorn on the club.
Even well-known fans and celebrity supporters such as Seven’s chief sport presenter and former No.1 ticket holder Rebecca Maddern buy into the Cats creed.
“From an observer’s point of view, everyone is very understated. Extremely smart, extremely measured, but they have a very under-the-radar style,” Maddern said.
Rebecca Maddern is a former No.1 ticket holder at Geelong.Credit: Simon Schluter
“That’s the style of the Geelong Football Club. We are not flamboyant. We are not in your face. We are just good people, and we get the job done.”
That sense of calm, according to one source, emanates from the board, which is rarely unsettled by elections, and extends to the club’s major commercial partners: Ford, Cotton On, Deakin University, GMHBA, Simonds Homes, Morris Finance and Marathon Foods.
This year Ford will celebrate its 100-year partnership with the Cats.
“I don’t think there is an example of that anywhere else in the world,” one club supporter said.
“The club acknowledges sponsors/benefactors, welcomes their support and gratitude is expressed, but Ford never tried to pick the team. That’s the way it runs across the club.”
That’s not to say that Geelong players are off limits.
“Important sponsors or important individuals might get a phone call from the captain, or a birthday card from the players. No well-run club would leave that to chance,” one source said.
But the interactions between players and sponsors happen organically in a regional town of Geelong’s size. They see each other in the street, cross paths in supermarkets and bump into each other around town.
Geelong businessman Simon Farrell, who also has a corporate box at GMHBA Stadium, is a big personality in Geelong.
He is the owner and director of Shojun Concrete, which is a club corporate partner, president of Geelong Amateur Football and Netball Club, and part-owns the Belmont and Barwon Club hotels.
“He had the Geelong players around at his house in Newtown for a Christmas BBQ. He is a popular guy,” one source said.
Back from the brink
Loyal business connections proved a saviour for Geelong in the financially fraught years before ramped-up TV rights injected competition-saving cash into AFL clubs.
Long-time club patron and Romanian immigrant Alex Popescu, who built Belmont Timber from scratch, wrote a personal cheque to pay staff and player wages for a month when the Cats were on their knees in the late 1990s.
The late Alex Popescu (right) with Brian Cook and the 2007 Geelong premiership cup.Credit: Fagg’s and Belmont Timber
Ford agreed to pay a large portion of its sponsorship up front to help with cash flow.
Costa and Cook were crucial to the turnaround.
“The stories were that when Brian Cook started at Geelong, he kept finding more and more debts every time he opened a drawer,” one source said.
Survival was a balancing act. The club negotiated a $6 million debt down to $3 million with the Bendigo Bank.
But to do so, Costa’s board had to personally guarantee the first million, while the City of Greater Geelong backed its footy club by guaranteeing the second and third million.
Popescu never asked for his money back and by the time of his death in 2010 was recognised as an off-field champion.
He had donated all the wood to build the club’s Ford Stand at Kardinia Park – which later made way for the Joel Selwood Stand – employed players and sponsored game-day awards.
A room at GMHBA Stadium is named in his honour, and he appears among club officials in the Cats’ team of the century picture.
Remarkably, after his death, Supreme Court papers revealed that he left Cook and the Geelong Football Club $250,000 each. He also left $5000 for each of his staff.
Cook dismissed suggestions at the time that the money was used outside the salary cap to keep Gary Ablett jnr at the club before he was lured north to join Gold Coast in 2011, and there was no evidence to the contrary.
But one source said that Cook donated a chunk of his bequeathed money back into club. The former CEO declined to comment when contacted by this masthead.
Geelong have come under extra scrutiny this year for deals involving players and coaches and local business.
The AFL investigated, and cleared, a partnership involving coach Chris Scott after he was appointed chief of leadership and performance at Morris Finance, a major sponsor of the football club.
That relationship has been a two-way street.
Morris Finance managing director Nathan Murray is a Cats supporter who has helped with mentoring and leadership at the club.
Bailey Smith was a Cotton On poster boy before he got to Geelong.Credit: Getty Images
Cotton On has been another useful employment avenue. The retail giant is a major sponsor of recruit Bailey Smith, has worked in collaboration with young Cats forward Shannon Neale on a clothing line, The Scratch Project, and has employed Tom Hawkins’ wife, Emma, as a brand ambassador.
Smith signed on with the iconic brand when he was still a Western Bulldogs player.
That relationship raised eyebrows at Whitten Oval last year when he was pictured at the MCG watching Geelong’s preliminary final alongside Cotton On’s Hardwick and retiring forward Hawkins. At that stage, he was still contracted to the Dogs.
Cotton On owners Austin and Hardwick were contacted for comment.
Patrick Dangerfield is another who has benefited from a Geelong connection. He has a regular fishing show on SEN, a radio station run by Cats fan Craig Hutchison.
SEN’s chief footy caller, Gerard Whateley, is also a Geelong supporter.
Cats-loving politicians Rob Hulls and Steve Bracks with Geelong’s Barry Stoneham.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
The political elite
Geelong have been dynamite in the political realm.
Successive presidents Costa and Colin Carter and chief executives Cook and Hocking have been adept at tapping into an uncanny run of Cats-supporting state premiers – Steve Bracks, Ted Baillieu, Denis Napthine – and deputy premier Rob Hulls. Current Police and Racing Minister Anthony Carbines is also a regular match-day fan.
At federal level, the member for Corio and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is an unabashed Geelong supporter.
At the turn of the century, Geelong’s stadium was “falling down”.
The club was being pressured to play games at Marvel Stadium, and they feared becoming just “another Melbourne team”.
Fruit and vegetable wholesaler Costa used his national business interests to open doors, and in one three-year period the Cats’ executive team visited 70 federal politicians.
“The beauty with Costa was that you never knew which side of politics he was on. That helps,” one source said.
The club undertook a major five-stage, 20-year redevelopment to rebuild their stadium and boost its capacity to 40,000 people.
In that time, the state government kicked in $260 million and the federal government $120 million. The grants have led to the precinct being facetiously nicknamed “Pork Barrel Park”.
But the politicians were kept happy, one source said, because the Cats “delivered on their promises”.
“The government would not keep giving them money if they were not successful,” they said.
Geelong’s political pulling power was on show before a home game against Gold Coast in June 2013 when Western Bulldogs-supporting prime minister Julia Gillard opened the new Players Stand, complete with new lights and screen.
Carter used his president’s speech to welcome Gillard and premier Napthine to their pre-game function, thanking both governments for their financial support. He also acknowledged the city’s mayor, Keith Fagg, a lifelong Cats fan whose brother Barry would later join the Geelong board.
Costa, who died in 2021, stepped down in 2011 and was followed by a succession of low-key presidents – Colin Carter (2011-2020), Craig Drummond (2021-2024) and the incumbent Grant McCabe who took over at the end of last year. But his influence is still being felt today.
When the club raised $16.3 million in tax-deductible donations in 2016, largely from wealthy backers, Costa and his brothers – Robert, Anthony and Kevin – contributed $3 million.
That windfall, called the “Our Ambition” fundraising campaign, not only wiped out the last of Geelong’s debt but helped bankroll the final stages of the stadium.
In 2024, the club was again overwhelmed by the Costas’ generosity when Shirley pledged $10 million towards a new $60 million indoor training and events facility to be built alongside GMHBA Stadium.
The purpose-built indoor facility, to service the community and Geelong’s AFL, AFLW, VFL and VFLW teams, will be called the Costa Family Centre.
The Geelebrities
The Cats are not flush with celebrity supporters, referred to as “Geelebrities” by the locals, once the spotlight moves beyond Oscar-nominated actor Guy Pearce and Muriel’s Wedding star Rachel Griffiths.
But the club has been well represented in the small-screen space.
Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers was No.1 ticket holder for 12 years before handing over to Maddern in 2011. Former Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle had a short-lived stint alongside Maddern from 2014 to 2015.
Maddern was indoctrinated into the Cats’ fold by her stepfather and former board member Rex Gorrell, the local Ford dealer who has a corporate box on the second level of GMHBA Stadium and a gym at the ground named in his honour.
She regularly hosted president’s lunches, awards nights and sponsor events. She attended important game-day functions, mingled with politicians and dignitaries during matches and even travelled to Spring Street in Melbourne and Parliament House in Canberra to help the club lobby state and federal governments for stadium funds.
“It was a pretty encompassing role,” said Maddern, who relinquished it in 2023. “One of the lovely parts about the role was not only representing Geelong when it really mattered on that official stage, but it was also the lovely relationships that I had.
“I was able to become quite close with many of the players and many of the board members and sponsors. It was a terrific time.
“My husband and I had a really lovely relationship with Joel [Selwood], and still do. They are lifelong friendships.”
Work took Maddern to Melbourne, and she travelled back and forth for Cats games.
“Yes, I got a car park,” she said. “I didn’t do it for the car park, but it was very welcome.”
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