Eddie McGuire upset Shane Warne’s $1.6m state funeral despite cost to the tax payer

Friends close to the media personality say they’ve never seen him so upset or appalled following suggestions he pocketed from Shane Warne’s funeral.

The Warne family has reached out to Eddie McGuire following the controversy around the cost of the cricketing legend’s state funeral.

As McGuire quite rightly told Page 13, the family have been through quite enough a year on from the spin king’s shock death.

McGuire said his good friend’s state memorial was like “Victoria’s funeral” and was “symbolism” in many ways.

The TV host and sports commentator buried his own beloved parent, Bridie, who died suddenly in August 2020 during the peak of the pandemic.

Eddie McGuire attends the state memorial service for former Australian cricketer Shane Warne at the MCG in 2022. Picture: Robert Cianflone

McGuire’s Scottish father Edward and Irish mother Bridie moved to Broadmeadows in Melbourne after boarding a boat from Southhampton in the UK for a better life in 1958.

“Thanks for devoting your life to us and convincing Dad to come to Melbourne,” McGuire wrote in a tribute at the time.

“You made our house a home, every occasion special and instilled a love of laughter and life. You and Dad couldn’t have done anymore for us. We are eternally grateful. And thanks for teaching me to read with expression.”

“In a lot of ways, we saw this as Victoria’s funeral,” McGuire said of Warne’s funeral this week. “I had to bury my mother with 10 people in the room at the funeral.”

But 12 months after Warne’s memorial was beamed around the world, leaving not a dry eye among the millions who watched it, headlines shrieked about the Victorian Government’s spending.

The reveal on the $1.6 million funeral also had a line item that McGuire’s production company JAM TV was paid $1m for the event.

“The funny thing is, anybody who understands broadcasts or events are saying how did you do it for such a little amount?” McGuire said.

“The reason is that everybody, as best as possible, did it for free. For free and with joy.”

State Memorial Service for Shane Warne at the MCG in 2022. Brooke, Jackson and Summer Warne unveil the Shane Warne Stand. Picture: Mark Stewart

McGuire has certainly copped his fair share over the journey. But friends close to him told Page 13 they have never seen him so upset or appalled in the decades they have known him, following suggestions he pocketed something out of organising the Warne funeral.

McGuire typically batted away suggestions he was hurt, graciously saying it was the Warne family he felt for.

“For the Warne family to be put through this again.”

McGuire cited one member of the family pointing out that the valuation on Warne’s $20 million estate meant he more than paid for it in tax.

“The intimation that people were pocketing money,” McGuire said was “ludicrous.”

“There were several audits, it’s all in plain sight.”

McGuire said people such as former premier Jeff Kennett taking the “populist and politically expedient route” in arguing about the cost of state memorials completely missed the mark.

“There is an old saying, a lot of people know the cost of something, but don’t understand the value of anything.”