Victorian AFL clubs are experiencing an outbreak of democracy during this AFL spring.
And it’s become clear many club boards are struggling to respond when their authority is challenged.
But they’d better get used to it because where shareholder activism started in the corporate world, active membership is following a similar path in the footy world.
Outgoing Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett.Credit:AAP
Look at the Hawthorn battle between the incumbents who have been accused as being as transparent as a bathroom window, and organised challengers struggling to trust the motivations behind anything the club does right now. The war of words has drifted uncomfortably into Andrews v Guy territory, campaigning at a turbo-charged level football supporters rarely experience.
Look at Collingwood. Unable to put their preferred candidate Dan Rosen up for election, they’re suddenly facing an open field of 11 people who have nominated for the board, with issues ranging from integrity to the way Jordan De Goey was treated after Bali.
Essendon’s board has been overhauled this year without the members voting as yet. That day is coming.
Even Geelong’s situation is causing some angst. Nominations for directors at the reigning premiers close today, with one director likely to continue beyond the 12-year term limit, which had been unofficial board policy for close to 15 years, in order to retain stability.
Part of the shift is due to built-up tension emerging after a decade where a tap on the shoulder from an influential figure saw a person with the requisite skills and standing (from a club’s perspective, at least) invited on to the board via a nominations committee (a process the AFL Commission still adheres to, although they have left two positions open for an eternity).
Now, as we have seen with Hawthorn during the proposed succession from Jeff Kennett to Peter Nankivell, and at Collingwood last year when Bridie O’Donnell and Neil Wilson had short-lived stints on the board, the nominations process is being heavily scrutinised and publicly criticised.
Collingwood president Jeff Browne.
Members paid up, remained passionate, and then had their pride in their club continually tested. Now they want a say.
The Hawks’ election has also underlined the changing expectations around the use of club’s membership data (a whole other story), with premiership player and former AFL Commission member Chris Langford questioning the legitimacy of sending members emails to state the board’s views of candidates.
“These are the members, it is a members club, it’s their database. I am appalled,” Langford told The Age.
The access to such data for members is a new flashpoint when it comes to clubs, with corporate shareholders often saying that the way company resources (and shareholder funds) are used to campaign is a reliable indication of their governance, or at least what they determine to be good governance.
Look at the Demons, not only losing a semi-final in September but losing a Supreme Court battle in October because they thought they were the only body with the right to use their members’ emails.
Justice Peter Riordan decided they weren’t.
Melbourne president Kate Roffey embraced fans during the club’s premiership celebration at the MCG in 2021Credit:Getty Images
Melbourne had to hand over emails and had costs awarded against them. The club used their resources to tell members – some of whom were unhappy with the decision – that they, themselves, were disappointed.
What they didn’t say was that the club rejected the chance to save members’ money before Justice Riordan reached his decision because he alerted them to the fact the “line of least resistance might be that your client decides to allow the members to receive the balance of this information through emails” two days before his final call.
I was sitting in court. The momentum was all the way of active member and former board candidate Peter Lawrence at that point. Had it been a qualifying final, you would have sat Max Gawn, Christian Petracca, and Clayton Oliver on the bench to save them for future battles.
And this was not even an election, but a campaign around the constitution with the Demons changing both their constitution and their election rules time after time in recent seasons, seemingly to keep challengers at bay.
Such an approach, whether real or perceived, won’t work because members are going to become more demanding of transparency in both actions and process.
Social media will keep questions bubbling, too, if members have governance issues that resonate with supporters and keep campaigns alive and lively. They may also see a side of their club leaders they don’t like if they have a penchant for late night tweets.
Many still won’t care initially, saddened, as we all are, that one of our escapes from thoughts about elections and campaigning – watching footy and thinking about lists – is disappearing.
That ideal vanished partly because nominated directors used their profile and status to attempt to influence many other aspects of our lives, rather than seeing their role simply as giving the team its best chance of success. And clubs became obsessed with telling us about their values.
So, here we are with sponsors and some elements of the supporter base wanting more from their club than just winning – keeping clubs accountable on a range of issues such as gambling, gender diversity and racism. Disengaged members will begin to make their presence felt.
That is forcing many to engage with off-field issues at their clubs.
We’ve seen shareholder activism influence corporate boards (as we’ve seen with the AGL battle) and the trend has passed to football, at least at the 11 clubs that are member-based (clubs situated outside Victoria give their members less chance to influence the board’s composition).
Democracy can be messy and being on club boards a thankless task.
But with record memberships club administrators better find a way to turn the AFL spring into a positive development, engaging members rather than being afraid of what they can offer. Otherwise, the game will become much harder to follow.
Let’s face it – Hawthorn supporters are getting a quick, fiery lesson that elections actually do matter. They won’t be the last.
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