Eddie McGuire struggling after fallout from his exit as Collingwood president

Eddie McGuire will likely be missing from our TV screens as the AFL season begins, as close friends worry about the former Collingwood president’s wellbeing.

Eddie McGuire has retreated from public life with increasing uncertainty over when he will return to television.

Close friends and associates are concerned about the former Collingwood president with reports he’s in a “very bad way”.

McGuire tearfully quit as Pies president last month amid a racism row and has barely been sighted outside his Toorak mansion since.

Despite the enormity of what he’s dealing with, McGuire went to pay tribute to the family of another Melbourne icon, music legend Michael Gudinski, on Tuesday night.

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Eddie McGuire resigned as Collingwood president last month. Picture: Getty

With the new AFL season approaching one of the biggest names in Australian television is yet to confirm his involvement.

The former Footy Show host has a unique presence in the football media landscape given he appears on two different networks.

Fox Footy is preparing for the host and commentator to be missing from the opening rounds, possibly for up to a couple of months.

There are also contingency plans being drawn for McGuire’s Wednesday night hosting gig on Channel 9’s Footy Classified which his company Jam TV produces.

McGuire, 56, has gone off the grid and is politely declining approaches from his wide circle of high-flying friends who are concerned about his wellbeing.

He has told some that he’s “not doing anything for a long time”.

One confidante revealed McGuire was struggling to deal with the messy fallout from his dream job which he’d held for almost 23 years.

“He can’t get his head around that he’s basically been booted out of the club which he spent most of his life doing everything for,” he said.

“He sees it that he did everything trying to look after these people and then when push came to shove, he got shoved.

“That’s what has absolutely crushed him.”

McGuire hinted at his sabbatical in his resignation speech from Collingwood saying: “And with the indulgence of my media partners, I’m going to take a break for a little while to regroup and heal.”

Eddie McGuire on the set of Footy Classified.

He shocked the football world when he brought his presidency to an early end, stepping down from the role after a weight of external and internal pressure in the wake of his controversial response to the Collingwood-commissioned Do Better report.

Addressing the release of the Do Better report – which found there was a long history of racist incidents involving the Magpies that hadn’t been addressed by its leadership – McGuire sensationally opened a press conference by declaring it a “historic and proud day” for Collingwood.

The fallout from that was severe with even his players and fellow board members turning on the man who had controlled everything at the club for the past two decades.

His comments were widely condemned, particularly by former Magpies player Heritier Lumumba, who alleged he faced discrimination at stages during his 10-year stint at Collingwood.

McGuire had already begun scaling back his media commitments with his long-running breakfast show alongside Luke Darcy on Triple M coming to an end in November.

Originally published as Eddie McGuire struggling after fallout from his exit as Collingwood president