Andrew Demetriou virtually disappeared from the AFL landscape for close to a decade following his 2014 exit from the game’s top job, not even showing up to receive his prestigious life membership at the 2015 season launch.
Demetriou’s attitude was that once he was out he was out. He left a clear path for his nominated and obvious successor Gillon McLachlan who had already begun to make changes and key appointments during Demetriou’s final months, and when he did attend footy games he sat in the stands with his family.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon (left) retains a strong relationship with the league’s former boss Andrew Demetriou.Credit: Justin McManus
The former AFL CEO finally returned to a major football function at the 2022 Geelong-Sydney grand final in deference to McLachlan’s departure – the latter in fact remained for an extra season – and it was clear to those who spoke to him that day that, although Demetriou had been physically absent from footy, he remained as finely attuned as ever to the sport’s politics ranging from clubs to head office.
At the end of the 2023 season he flew to Sydney to attend the Giants’ last home game, where he was awarded life membership of the AFL’s youngest club, but in between those two ceremonies it was Demetriou’s work behind the scenes which had a more significant impact upon the game.
Andrew Dillon was already the favourite to replace McLachlan and would probably have won the appointment without the support of his former AFL boss and mentor, but there is no doubt that once Demetriou realised Brendon Gale would struggle to win the support from Richard Goyder’s commission, he threw his considerable assistance and behind-the-scenes advice Dillon’s way.
Demetriou and his long-time friend and AFL commissioner Bill Kelty have been something of a kitchen cabinet over the past year, and specifically in recent months, for Dillon, who took some time to act but has, over the past four weeks, demonstrated considerable fortitude in the face of a looming clubs revolt against the game’s headquarters.
Despite his low profile, former league CEO Andrew Demetriou remains an influential figure within the AFL. Credit: Eamon Gallagher
When Dillon was spotted lunching in East Melbourne two weeks ago with Demetriou, Kelty and his immediate predecessor McLachlan he had already moved a significant way towards the transformative staff restructure that rocked the game’s Docklands headquarters. Six days earlier, after Robert Walls’ funeral, Dillon met Greg Swann and began what proved a significantly speedy process to install Swann as his key football lieutenant.
But in the days that followed the Il Duca lunch came a renewed attempt to poach Stuart Fox from the MCC. Swans boss Tom Harley had been a preferred candidate among a small group to become the AFL’s chief operating officer, but Dillon and his chairman Goyder had first approached Fox six months earlier and decided to try him one more time before making their final choice. Demetriou, too, contacted Fox, who reconsidered but finally declined the offer on June 3.
Demetriou’s role as Dillon’s backroom supporter should not be overstated, but his network is immeasurable given his close friendships and work associations with Tasmania Devils boss Gale, potential commission chairman Jeff Browne, Swann and AFL clubs consultant Trevor Nisbett.
My colleague Jake Niall reported in April that Demetriou was acting as a paid consultant to Sports Advisory Partners, a company which has struck a lucrative deal with the AFL to create and develop better football administrators across the competition. Demetriou was not the first individual in recent times to be frustrated even with that bureaucratic process. That those pathways were poor was never better demonstrated than with the recent consultant appointments of retired club bosses Nisbett (67) and Geoff Walsh (68) to head office. Swann, whose appointment appeared to circumnavigate the customary box-ticking through human resources, was a wildly popular choice across the competition. He is 63.
The competition heavies Demetriou has gathered for the administrative course include both Walsh and Nisbett along with Gale, Carlton CEO-elect Graham Wright, respected former club chief Peter Jackson, player agent bosses Paul Connors (a former adversary of Demetriou’s) and Tom Petroro. Three-time premiership president Peggy O’Neal, the AFL’s first woman club chair, has also been enlisted. Perhaps she has reminded Demetriou of the treatment he dished out to her and a group of women club directors who dared to raise misgivings about the role of then rogue player manager Ricky Nixon.
More intriguing given his strong AFL connections and his relationship with Fox, Demetriou also recently established Sanctum, a private members’ club operating out of the Pullman near the MCG and run by long-time sport and entertainment event consultant Clint Hillas. Another backer is former AFL executive Darren Birch. Hillas’ role is also controversial given his previous work with the Melbourne Cricket Club – which has been at pains to separate itself and its five-year-old MCC Network, also a special sporting events-driven club, from competitor Sanctum.
All of the above would belie Demetriou’s ongoing insistence to former colleagues that he has retired. He remains a passionate North Melbourne supporter, and his son Sacha will qualify to potentially be picked up by the club under the father-son rule in two seasons’ time. Demetriou’s greatest quality remains his fierce loyalty to those he has backed or led or successfully worked alongside. Dillon is one of the above.
Nor should it suggest that Dillon is not pulling the strings. Having emerged without bitterness or any visible bruising from a torrid past month, the AFL boss has poached not one but two of the most respected club CEOs in the game, negotiated Tanya Hosch’s departure without public rancour in what has been a drawn-out process from McLachlan’s era, and stood firm on his preferred 2.30pm start time for the grand final despite considerable pressure from some commissioners and the game’s free-to-air broadcast partner Channel Seven.
Behind closed doors Dillon, who colleagues say is as resilient to criticism as any sporting boss they have come across, has also stood firm on Tasmania’s 2028 entry into the AFL in the face of political upheaval, placated angry umpires and even made a carefully worded case for prudence to Bailey Smith by reminding him how important he is to the game and how big lie Smith’s horizons. And he has finally delivered soft cap relief to football departments appeasing disillusioned coaches across the competition.
Dillon has remained publicly and privately loyal, too, to Laura Kane in his dealings with club bosses, blaming himself, in part, for her struggles, while privately convincing her to remain and of her long-term future in football. It is worth pointing out, too, that Dillon, unlike Demetriou, has managed all of the above without a hands-on chairman. Richard Goyder might be strongly supporting Dillon in the background, but Demetriou’s two chairman Ron Evans and Mike Fitzpatrick both led from the front.
Demetriou and Dillon would both play down his backroom role, but the former CEO’s connection to a time when the game stared down recalcitrant clubs has proved a timely sounding board when too many of his own executives were letting him down or not performing.
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