AFL CEO taskforce set up to examine the future of club football departments
As the AFL works around the clock to save the season and possibly the code, club chief executives have banded together to help save their football clubs, Mark Robinson writes.
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A consortium of AFL’s most experienced brains will conduct an unprecedented and comprehensive audit of club football departments.
Geelong’s Brian Cook, West Coast’s Trevor Nisbett, Brisbane’s Greg Swann, Gold Coast’s Mark Evans and Essendon’s Xavier Campbell have formed a chief executive taskforce to gauge what football departments will look like after the coronavirus crisis.
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The subcommittee is one of four made up of club chiefs. The others are finance, membership/marketing and health.
It’s understood the idea was Campbell’s and has been embraced by all club CEOs. It is the first time all 18 club bosses have teamed up for a common cause.
The potential loss of more than $15 million for each club this year, the slashing of the football department spend by $3 million and the possibility of reduced playing lists means costs will have to be reduced in clubland.
Clubs last week stood down or made redundant 80 per cent of their staff.
The veteran CEOs are examining every aspect of finance and personnel. Their findings will be sent to all other CEOs for further ideas and consideration before a report is tabled with the AFL’s head of football Steve Hocking in coming weeks.
“Our role, the taskforce or working group, is simply to prepare a paper of discussion points which all CEOs can talk about,” Cook said.
“We are really into a brainstorming stage, where hopefully we talk about the options.”
Although most areas will be cut back, player welfare, which was already a hot-bed issue, is set to have more resources ploughed into it, while there is a general belief the medical department must remain strong.
The committee has had one phone hook-up and have since corresponded via email, while all 18 chiefs are in a WhatsApp group.
Cook, who has been Geelong’s chief since 1999, said the CEOs have been constantly talking in the past fortnight.
“There’s three or four committees and they’re around the major common issues we’re facing, which is about revenue protection, maintaining our football department connections and football department futures,” he said.
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He said clubs were “all grappling” with how football departments might look in the future.
“Is it a reduced version of what we’ve currently got or something completely different?” he said.
“Is it about maintaining headcount and reducing hours or is it about reduction of salaries? We’re looking at all sorts of principles that the CEOs need to talk about, as well as the general managers of footy who have been meeting regularly, and the CFOs.
“It’s non-binding among the clubs, it’s basically, ‘here’s the template, let’s talk about the future, let’s talk what are the services we can share into the future as distinct from those little things which can give us a competitive advantage’, that’s another key question. It will be very comprehensive.”
Originally published as AFL CEO taskforce set up to examine the future of club football departments