Inside the frenemies and factions in footy’s Game of Thrones fight to replace Richard Goyder

It’s no secret clubs want AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder gone, but a convoluted and tightly-guarded selection process is holding them at bay. Go inside the high-stakes game of cat and mouse.

Like the nightmare dinner guest, Richard Goyder just doesn’t want to leave.

First he had to be blasted out of Qantas and now he’s hanging on for perennial desserts as clubs figure out a way to remove him as chairman of the AFL commission.

“Richard is following his same modus operandi from the corporate world, he promises to go and then doesn’t and keeps extending it,” one club president recently told the AFR.

It’s no secret a growing number of clubs want Goyder gone, but a convoluted and tightly-guarded commissioner selection process is holding them at bay.

Andrew Dillon and Commission chairman Richard Goyder on the boundary at Marvel Stadium. Picture: Michael Klein

At the centre of footy’s high-stakes game of cat and mouse is a little-known eight-person nominations committee, of which Goyder also happens to be chair.

As another senior club figure said on Thursday: “I don’t even understand why Richard Goyder thinks it’s appropriate for him to be involved in the process?”

Assisted by New York-based consultants Spencer Stuart (the same global recruitment firm that helped the league identify the man down the hall as Gillon McLachlan’s replacement), the committee is in the process of finalising a list of would-be candidates for two expected commission vacancies at season’s end.

Among those being linked to a run include former Collingwood president Jeff Browne, current Port Adelaide chairman David Koch, ex-Geelong president Craig Drummond and two-time Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon.

Jeff Browne. Picture: David Crosling

Craig Drummond.

Each has their own support from across the competition and could emerge as Goyder’s eventual replacement - but winning a seat at football’s highest table is proving the hardest part.

None are yet to publicly declare their interest, and even if they wanted to, it might derail their chances.

Sitting with Goyder and two other commissioners on the nominations committee is a group of highly-influential club presidents including St Kilda’s outspoken Andrew Bassat, Sydney’s Andrew Pridham, North Melbourne’s Sonja Hood, Brisbane’s Andrew Wellington and John Olsen from the Crows - all with their own agendas and beliefs on how the industry should be run.

Interviews will begin late this month with recommendations expected to be made by grand final week in September.

The same elongated process served the game well two years ago when the respected Andrew Ireland and Matt de Boer joined the AFL commission, but this time around it’s Goyder who is milking it to prolong his own underwhelming 14-season stay.

One option being canvassed is for Goyder’s anointed successor to serve under him as a chairman elect in 2026, but it’s not a scenario considered even remotely acceptable by some.

The prevailing view in clubland is that it’s Browne who has the numbers, but if he wants it he’s not saying so as the politics plays out.

Drummond is said to have the support of a smaller faction concerned about the power of the bigger clubs, while either Gordon or Koch could yet come through the middle as a compromise candidate.

Richard Goyder at the Australian Football Hall of Fame event last year. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos/via Getty Images.

There’s also a sense that Spencer Stuart will throw up some left-field contenders from the corporate world, despite an insistence from the clubs that the next AFL chairman needs to come with “deep” football industry experience.

Former Victorian governor and one-time commissioner Linda Dessau and businessman John Wylie have recently been floated for consideration.

The chosen ones will be revealed to the clubs in late September (and ratified by the 18 teams at next year’s AFL annual general meeting in March) but behind the scenes the jockeying in the race to replace Goyder is on in earnest.