Inside Carlton’s feuding factions: How the salary cap blame game still haunts the Blues

Stephen Silvagni returned to the Blues with the aim of building a premiership list. But one club great has lashed his performance and the ‘GWS hacks’ he signed.

The beers will be flowing when the greats of Carlton’s past assemble at Marvel Stadium later this month to celebrate the club’s back-to-back premiership triumphs of 1981 and 1982.

They were glory days for the once all-conquering Blues, who saluted again in 1987 and 1995 under the presidency of business tycoon John Elliott.

“Every year we were up the top and now we’re not – it’s hard to get used to,” club great Percy Jones lamented of the lost generation this week.

Like many of his era, Jones, who played in four Carlton flags (1968, 1970, 1972 and 1979), is a subscriber to the theory that the club has never really recovered from the salary cap scandal of 2002.

“I know it’s a long bow after 20 years, but it was a massive kick in the guts to us,” Jones says.

“They gave the arse to Elliott, (Wes) Lofts, (Peter) Kerr and (Barry) Armstrong and in came Ian Collins, who was the CEO of Docklands (stadium) and he moved us from our home (Princes Park) to Etihad. It was a joke.

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Carlton great Percy Jones. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Ex-Carlton president John Elliott.

“Then there was the lagging by (Stephen) Silvagni, that was a beauty, and then he came back on half a million a year and hired all those hacks from (Greater Western Sydney) up in NSW.

“All the old ladies love him, but the blokes that I know, they’re still dirty on him.”

Factions are nothing new at Carlton, a club still haunted by the ghosts of the salary cap rorts.

Since Elliott was turfed out almost two decades ago, a conga line of Blues administrators have tried and failed to turn the tide on Royal Parade.

Silvagni, a second-generation champion of the club, fell foul of Carlton’s newest broom at the end of 2019 in a power struggle with chief executive Cain Liddle.

Silvagni was close to president Mark LoGiudice (their kids went to the same private school), who had convinced him to shift from the Giants back to the Blues, but the pair rarely talk these days after his board chose to side with Liddle and his bold vision for the club.

The bad blood spilled over in November last year when Silvagni claimed Liddle had told LoGiudice he would have sabotaged the club’s trade and draft period if he had remained at the club.

“I hate talking about myself, but when you’ve played for a club for 17 years and you put your body on the line and supported the club all your life, for a person to say you’ll sabotage the trade and draft period, and for me, an outsider that’s come into the club and doesn’t know a lot about the club or me, that was probably the most disappointing out of everything that happened,” Silvagni said.

The three generations of Carlton Silvagnis – Stephen, Serge and Jack. Picture: David Caird

Liddle was talking premierships in February, but yet another fizzled season has led to a sweeping independent review of the club’s football operations, which kicked off on Monday.

Former Collingwood footy boss Geoff Walsh, ex-Fremantle star Matthew Pavlich and one-time Western Bulldogs football operations manager Graham Lowe will present a final report to the board later in the season.

LoGiudice says the recent re-signings of star forward Harry McKay and skipper Patrick Cripps demonstrates “a strong show of faith in the direction of this football club”, but it’s almost certain there will be changes at Carlton.

One club figure, who declined to be named, said LoGiudice had been “hoodwinked” by Liddle, who he said had formed a boys’ club of his own at Princes Park. Football boss Brad Lloyd, player acquisition and total player payment manager Michael Agresta and football operations and compliance manager Len Villani are linked through local football.

AFL Commission reveals the charges against Carlton in 2002.

Carlton President Ian Collins after the findings.

“The main problem at Carlton is that the board has trusted the wrong people – and it hasn’t worked out,” the club figure said.

Yet Liddle can rightly point to record memberships, record revenues, the wiping of a crippling $7 million debt and a $50 million Princes Park redevelopment as proof of progress.

It was the CEO who declared at the unveiling of senior coach David Teague in August 2019 that “the profiling work we’ve undertaken has confirmed for us that ‘Teaguey’ is absolutely perfect for where our group is at”.

But now all bets are off with an increasing view that vice-president Luke Sayers, who will formally replace LoGiudice at the end of the season, is prepared to make the hard calls to reverse the fortunes of the club.

Sayers, 52, is hardly a newcomer, having served on the board since September 2012 (a month after the sacking of Brett Ratten), but he comes to the top job highly credentialed and strongly connected.

Treasurer (and joint No. 1 Carlton ticket holder) Josh Frydenberg told the Herald Sun the transition from LoGiudice to Sayers would be smooth.

“Mark and Luke are great Blues men and like so many of us passionate supporters are both excited and hopeful about Carlton’s future,” Frydenberg said.

“Luke brings to his new role a great background in business together with experience on the board. No pressure, just a flag in his first term!”

Vice-president and benefactor Jeannie Pratt is tipped to join LoGiudice in retirement as will football director Chris Judd (rarely seen or heard since stepping away from his media commitments), leaving Carlton’s key football director post vacant.

A letter from LoGiudice to club members on Saturday revealed the review would be led by Sayers “with the support of CEO Cain Liddle” – suggesting Liddle is safe and the spotlight will be on Teague, Lloyd and high performance boss Andrew Russell, with some questioning the handling of injuries and fitness.

Mark LoGiudice and Cain Liddle at the announcement of David Teague as senior coach. Picture: Michael Klein

Coaching great Mick Malthouse, sacked by the same Carlton board six years ago, said the mid-season review with eight rounds to go was a “knee-jerk reaction by a club with a long record for doing it”.

“And with that record, you’ve got to go through the common denominator of who has been there for a long time – and it’s the board,” Malthouse said.

“If I was David Teague – knowing that probably no club in the last 20 years has sacked more coaches than Carlton – I would be worried and annoyed that this process can only get in the way of what he is trying to do, and it can only sow doubt in the minds of the players.

“I’m a coach’s person. When you are put on, you’re put on and if it proves that you’re not good enough or it proves that it’s not a good mix, then at the end of that contract you part ways. So if they think the review doesn’t put pressure on players and coaches and staff, then they’ve got no realisation of what takes place, because it puts massive pressure on.

“And I can talk through personal experiences here. As much as you are a big boy, I had a senior Carlton player once say to me, ‘Does this (sacking speculation) affect you?’. And I’d say, ‘Well, of course it has an effect’.

“How does he (Teague) coach now? Does he coach knowing that over his shoulder he’s got three people watching his every move?”

An experienced football CEO such as Trevor Nisbett would have pushed back against the board’s request for a review so early in the season, Malthouse declared.

“They’ve all got the best interests of the club at heart at Carlton,” he said. “There’s no question about that, but it’s the process, and you’ve got to keep asking the question – why has it happened so regularly in such a short period of that club’s history?