Who saved Collingwood? How the Magpies rebuilt their off-field spine after disastrous salary cap drama, ‘Do Better’ report and miserable 2021

Out: McGuire, Buckley, Walsh, Anderson, Korda, Guy. In: Browne, Kelly, McRae, Wright. Go behind the bloody boardroom brawls and get the inside story on who saved Collingwood.

It was the phone call that landed the biggest fish in Collingwood’s resurrection.

In the first week of December last year, Magpies president Jeff Browne – just one season into the job – made a final pitch to powerful footy agent and 1990 premiership player Craig Kelly to take the reins as chief executive.

“I was sitting in my office in Collins St and I said, ‘Mate, I need you to come back to Collingwood and give back to Collingwood,” Browne recalled this week.

“And the way I put it to him was like when I was in the law. A senior King’s Counsel would probably earn $5m or $6m a year today, but what a lot of them do is they then go to the bench and become a judge, earning three or four hundred grand a year.

“The reason they do that is to give back to the profession that gave them the opportunity to be so successful and that’s what I put to Ned. And he said, ‘Yeah, I think that would be a great way to finish my career’.

“I probably had him before that, but it was the moment when he said ‘Yes’.”

Much has changed at Australia’s biggest sporting club since the dark days of the 2020 salary cap debacle, the leaking of the explosive ‘Do Better’ racism report and a miserable 17th place finish in 2021.

President Eddie McGuire, coach Nathan Buckley, footy boss Geoff Walsh, chief executive Mark Anderson, senior director Mark Korda and list chief Ned Guy are out and a new broom led by Browne, Kelly, senior coach Craig McRae and football boss Graham Wright (another 1990 flag hero) have taken over.

Browne’s rise to the presidency was bloody and prolonged, but it has since been defined by two rollicking seasons, record membership and the club’s first minor premiership in a dozen years.

McGuire declined to talk about the remaking of Collingwood since those turbulent days, but Buckley conceded that on reflection, change was needed for the greater good.

“I always thought that Ed was going to need to step aside for new growth, but I didn’t realise that I needed to do it as well (laughs) …” he said.

Buckley, who came within a Dom Sheed drop punt of becoming a premiership coach in 2018, joked that there was a “great irony” in Wright – who he’d “been trying to get back to the club for ages” – being the one who managed him out.

It was Wright and football director Paul Licuria who then drove the pivotal appointment of McRae, whose style even Buckley believes is “more naturally” suited to “what we had become”.

“He’s just taken it to another level,” Buckley said.

EDDIE V GALBALLY

Francis Galbally, the lawyer turned businessman who drove the 2021 boardroom coup, describes McGuire as “the best president Collingwood’s ever had”.

“He achieved so much, but unfortunately he stayed too long,” Galbally said this week.

At the height of the bitter boardroom brawl, Galbally, who served as the club’s honorary solicitor from 1976-94, likened Collingwood’s governance failings to the spectacular downfall of Crown Resorts.

His attempts at brokering a peaceful transition in late 2020 were rebuffed by McGuire, sparking angst that lingers to this day.

“The governance just wasn’t there because everyone effectively did what Eddie wanted,” Galbally said.

“Football is about football. We don’t need to hear about the CEO or the chairman all the time. All the fans want to know about is the players, the coach and what is happening on the ground. Collingwood has gone back to that, which is fabulous.

“No person has the right to say ‘this is what is going to happen and that is it’. We had that in the past, but now we have proper debate and a consensus reached.

“So, as soon as you get the head right it just goes all the way down to the other parts of the body and that is what has happened at Collingwood – and I’m ecstatic about it.

“The transformation of the club has been the result of an extraordinary effort by a large number of Magpies members who came together for a common cause, but most would prefer to remain anonymous.”

Browne said this week of Galbally’s public role in the remaking of the Pies: “Francis was a vital part of the campaign to bring change to Collingwood. And if we hadn’t changed things up, I don’t believe we would have been as successful. He was a key protagonist.”

Francis Galbally drove Collingwood’s 2021 boardroom coup. Picture: Rob Leeson

BROWNE V KORDA

Former president Mark Korda, who replaced McGuire when he stepped down in February 2021, concedes that the board battle with Browne – the man who coveted his job – was messier than it needed to be.

As bitter as the fight became, he has given Browne a thumbs up for the way the new Collingwood is travelling right now.

He’s watched the club’s fightback from afar and says he is proud that the board under his presidency ratified two of the most important appointments in the Magpies’ new era, Wright and McRae.

Korda conceded the Magpies got “the optics” wrong in its fire sale of three grand final players Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson and Tom Phillips in a damaging 2020 trade period that prompted protests from Collingwood fans. But he insisted they were the right calls.

Asked for an assessment of how Browne has led, Korda said: “He is doing a fine job. Clubs are always happy places when the team is winning and I am very happy to see Collingwood winning.

“We would all say as directors who have moved on that we have left the club in a better state than when we started.”

Korda praised the selfless approach from Buckley in mid-2021.

“Nathan decided, and the club decided, that it was time to make a change, but he handled it so well. His morals and principles were outstanding,” Korda said.

“He did what was in the best interests of the Collingwood Football Club, and I think the change to Craig has been an important part of the success you have seen.”

Browne and Korda have made amends and the latter received life membership last year.

“I rang him before the AGM and told him – and I think that was appropriate to say thank you for 14 years of service,” Browne said.

“If you harbour those things and let them fester they just get worse.”

Jeff Browne wanted Craig Kelly back at the club. Picture: Michael Klein

THE LICA FACTOR

Collingwood’s last premiership coach Mick Malthouse says vice-president Paul Licuria was a “winner” from the board upheaval.

He helped foster a smooth transition from Korda to Browne and with Wright pinpointed McRae as the ideal coach.

Malthouse said Licuria “deserves a hell of a lot of credit for going through a very detailed process in getting the right person”.

“I spoke to Paul and he spoke to me about certain things and in his mind he thought McRae was the one to get the best out of this group,” he said.

“So Licuria has been the winner and then you have what appears to be a very settled group and a settled board – and you’ve just gotta have that. The players have rallied. You can just see that they just enjoy playing. They like the game style because they helped develop it.

“They’ve given their supporters two bloody great years.”

The McRae appointment, announced in September 2021, closed out one of the most exhaustive coaching selection processes in the club’s history.

The subcommittee compiled a list of more than 90 senior and assistant coaches in the AFL and state leagues before it was whittled down to McRae.

The low key, inclusive but fiercely competitive McRae had a compelling two-decade CV, but was decidedly ‘off-Broadway’ compared to the Leigh Matthews, Tony Shaw, Malthouse and Buckley signings.

REBUILDING THE SPINE

Browne’s “first recruit” in the Magpies’ rebuild was former AFL staffer Nadine Rabah, the club’s communications chief, who steered the response to controversies involving Jordan De Goey and Jack Ginnivan.

“She was the league’s brightest star, very capable and has a huge future,” Browne said.

“We needed to get on top of the comms.”

Next came the hiring of former Nine executive Ian Paterson as chief commercial officer.

“Our business wasn’t performing as well as the biggest club in the AFL should. We needed to straighten up all the revenue lines and improve our sponsor relations,” he said.

“When I was managing director of the Nine Network, Ian ran all the sponsorships and commercial partnerships for the London (Summer) and Vancouver (Winter) Olympics. We knew what he could do with sponsors and how to look after them at events.”

Browne convinced Paterson to relocate his family from Sydney to Melbourne but luring Kelly – the founder and boss of sports management empire TLA – was the game-changer.

Buckley said Kelly’s decision to return to the Magpies was “huge”.

“At some point it was always in the back of his mind and in his heart that he would love to come back and help the place. And I think he feels like he really can,” Buckley said.

But Kelly’s senior role at TLA was a sticking point.

“We needed someone capable of running a high-performance team and at the same time remain well liked in the industry – and I knew that person was Ned,” Browne said.

“He was obviously engaged by TLA and technically wasn’t able to speak to me until just before last Christmas, but he and I have been friends for 35 years, so we met and talked about things that friends talk about. I had a lot of friendly discussions with him and things got friendlier and friendlier.

Craig McRae has made an immediate impact since joining Collingwood. Picture: Getty Images

“Ned’s knowledge of the industry is unsurpassed. His connections, his associations and ability to be able to call people. He could see what I wanted to do.

“So we brought those people in (Kelly, Paterson and Rabah), but I also assessed everyone who was there.

“I knew we had the right coach (McRae) and I knew we had the right footy manager (Wright). And the teams that assemble around those two positions are really for those two people to manage.”

Collingwood is on track to break the all-time AFL membership record and has renewed its deal with La Trobe Financial, while Browne met recently with the head of Emirates Airlines in Dubai over an extension of its partnership.

“I went through methodically and rebuilt the spine of that business,” Browne said.

“I ramped up the membership effort and promised 100,000 members and we got there.”

On his relationship with City Hall, Browne said: “By not lambasting them in the press, I know when I have a real problem I can go and sit in front of them and get a good hearing.”

A board subcommittee is also working on an overhaul of Collingwood’s constitution with input from Galbally and other members.

“It was a total mess and that is being fixed,” Galbally said.

On the field, Darcy Moore took over as captain in late January and five players – Tom Mitchell, Bobby Hill, Dan McStay, Oleg Markov and Billy Frampton – were astutely traded in or recruited over summer.

“They were all targeted recruits, which just shows method,” Browne said.

The Magpies also brought in high performance manager Jarrod Wade – whom Mason Cox dubs ‘Coach Beard’ of Ted Lasso fame – who has played a key role in the past two seasons in making Collingwood one of the fittest and fastest finishing teams in the competition.

DARCY AND ‘DO BETTER’

Even before he was appointed captain in January, Darcy Moore was one of the driving forces for change at Collingwood.

In the days after the leaking of the Do Better report, Moore organised Collingwood’s athletes to pen an open letter beginning with the word “sorry” to address the club’s record on racism.

“We had a problem with racism at the club,” Browne said.

“We did the ‘Do Better’ report and it was really important that we got on and implemented those recommendations – that was critical – and the board and administration drove that really hard.”

Moore and Browne attended a traditional Indigenous healing ceremony at Victoria Park in April to honour the 30-year anniversary of Nicky Winmar’s 1993 stand against racism.

“The whole ‘Do Better’ (report) has turned from being a huge liability to a real positive because it has become a blueprint for the way forward,” Darcy’s father, club great Peter Moore said.

“I’ve been very impressed with Jeff Browne and highly recommended him to take the position of presidency.

“The board is very stable, low-key and well managed.

“One of (Darcy’s) big strengths is that he has that compassion for others and he is a deep thinker who understands all those social issues which are so important and also the importance of culture and creating a great environment for everyone.”

JEFF AND EDDIE

Browne and McGuire are lifelong friends, but the former Magpies boss has kept his distance since his exit, although he is still a regular at games.

“Ed’s very happy for the club and enjoying our success,” Browne said.

“We talk about the club but he doesn’t give me any advice. He respects the new broom. There are different styles for different times.”

1990 premiership captain Tony Shaw has great admiration for what McGuire did for the club, but adheres to the belief that anything longer than a 10-year stint in a coaching or administrative role is too long.

“It’s like Leigh Matthews always said ‘10 years at any club – even as a coach – is probably enough’,” Shaw said.

“You see a lot of people hang on for too long. What Ed has done for the club has been incredible. But let’s not kid ourselves, you have to keep refreshing things and they have done that pretty well.

“Browney has done a good job. He and Eddie are two completely different blokes. They have the same drive and the same ambitions, but they do it in different ways.”

Browne and director Jodie Sizer, who said she would never work on a board with him as the dispute raged, are now allies.

“Jodie will say to you now that she said that because she didn’t know me,” Browne said.

“We are not only very good colleagues but we are also very good friends.”

Eddie McGuire resigned as Collingwood president on the eve of the 2021 season. Picture: Getty Images

EGO IS A DIRTY WORD

The view from some within Collingwood, and even detractors outside the club, is that ego has sometimes conspired to weigh the Magpies down.

Even Buckley said this week: “Maybe ego has been an issue, but I think we have balanced it now because you don’t want to remove ego altogether because then it doesn’t matter to you.

“Browne, Wright, Kelly, McRae – they seem to have found the right balance.”

Asked if ego was a factor under his regime, Browne said: “There are no ‘out of control egos’ at Collingwood. If there is, I can’t see them and if I find them, I will deal with them.”

On Thursday night, Collingwood takes on Melbourne in a qualifying final.

Malthouse said of the premiership race: “They should win it. It’s theirs to lose, quite frankly.

“They have a deep midfield, good depth outside of the 22, their backline is miserly and they are very aggressive in their running capabilities. And the forward line is a businessman’s forward line. It’s very much structured on six players and not one, and that’s a bonus coming into finals.”

For all of his business success, Browne’s passion for Collingwood remains the same as when he was a kid growing up in the Magpie heartland of Watsonia.

“The next four weeks is about the footy but you’ve got to get everything right to create the best environment for your athletes to perform at their best,” Browne said. “We have got the right coaching group, we’ve got a playing group that can achieve at the highest level and I know they will give their very best.

“But what burns in my memory is not that we were 17th on the ladder when I took over, it was that we lost to Sydney by a f***ing point in the preliminary final last year – and I reckon that burns in everyone’s hearts and minds at Collingwood.

“That is one of the things that motivates us.”

Originally published as Who saved Collingwood? How the Magpies rebuilt their off-field spine after disastrous salary cap drama, ‘Do Better’ report and miserable 2021