Mick Malthouse reveals he met with Eddie McGuire after Collingwood exit

Is Eddie McGuire and Mick Malthouse’s relationship on the mend? The coaching great says he met with McGuire to discuss his shock departure from Collingwood.

Eddie McGuire will return to Footy Classified.

Mick Malthouse has revealed he met with Eddie McGuire recently to urge him to return to public life after his shock departure as Collingwood president last month.

It is a sure sign of the thawing in the relationship of the two of football’s biggest characters of the modern era who spectacularly fell out over the Magpies’ coaching succession to Nathan Buckley a decade ago.

Malthouse had been concerned McGuire had shut himself off from the football world following his departure, which came in the wake of the leaking of the ‘Do Better’ report.

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Eddie McGuire and Mick Malthouse in 2011.

“I have had contact with Ed and I am pleased that I did,” Malthouse told ABC Sport.

“Nanette (Malthouse’s wife) and myself were able to have a cup of coffee with (McGuire) and we went through a few of the processes.”

Malthouse said McGuire’s situation – where he stayed out of the public eye for more than a month until his re-emergence on Footy Classified on Wednesday – reminded the AFL coaching games record holder of his sacking at Carlton in 2015.

“When I was sacked by Carlton, and I don’t mind saying it … I felt ashamed, I felt humiliated, I felt like I couldn’t go out of my house,” Malthouse said.

“I felt no one love me, and no one wants to talk to you, or if they want to talk to you, they want to talk negatively to you.

“One day you wake up and you go ‘I have to get back out there’. I have got to get out of this. I said to Eddie, you have got to come outside at some stage and people will genuinely say you have been fantastic for footy.

“The majority of our people in our great game are positive people and that’s what I tried to convey to him.”

Collingwood interim co-president Mark Korda paid tribute to McGuire at the club’s pre-game function on Friday night, saying the Magpies would forever be indebted to him.

Korda made no comment about the club’s search for a permanent replacement for McGuire.

But he said the club would honour McGuire’s contribution to the club in a greater capacity later in the season.

Korda’s interim co-president Peter Murphy did not attend the Round 1 clash with the Bulldogs after a staff member at his company underwent a precautionary COVID test after feeling unwell.

Eddie McGuire in a private box with Bulldogs powerbroker, Peter Gordon. Picture: Mark Stewart

Korda said of McGuire: “After 22 years, the person not standing here is Eddie McGuire.”

“Eddie has a fantastic legacy at Collingwood and we are proud of everything he did.”

“He is taking a bit of time off at the moment and make no doubt during the year we will honour Eddie with the full colours, as you would expect.”

“He has had a pretty difficult time … as the other board members would say, we didn’t even know Eddie was going to resign on that Tuesday.

“I personally believe that he made the decision to resign in the best interests of the club.”

Korda said: “One of Peter (Murphy’s) staff was sick this afternoon and the doctor told them to get a COVID test, so Peter thought he better not come tonight.”

EDDIE WON’T ‘RAT’ ON FIGURES BEHIND DEMISE

Eddie McGuire says he was “really really sad” and “affected greatly” after resigning as Collingwood Football Club president.

But McGuire, who returned to television on Wednesday night after a self-imposed sabbatical, vowed to dust himself off and move forward.

“Of course I was sad,” McGuire said on Channel 9’s Footy Classified.

“It was a tough couple of weeks. I was really really sad and it affected me greatly, but I’m OK now, because you get up, dust yourself off, and you go again.”

McGuire said his sadness was compounded by the recent deaths of good friends, football legend Murray Wiedeman, and music boss Michael Gudinski.

But McGuire said he wasn’t going to give updates about his wellbeing because “I didn’t have an outlet.”

He added: “I’m not the president of Collingwood anymore, so I’m not doing press conferences. I don’t do breakfast radio anymore, I stepped back from that.”

McGuire returned to TV by declaring himself an “uncompromised football commentator”.

The former Collingwood president ended his time out of the spotlight returning to his regular seat as host of Footy Classified.

Eddie McGuire made an 11th hour return to the show.

“Welcome to Footy Classified on the eve of the 2021 football season,” McGuire said.

“It’s been so long since we’ve been at the game; some people are saying the ground will be half empty, I’m saying it’s going to be half full tomorrow.

“It’s going to be fantastic to have Richmond and Carlton going head to head on a Thursday night at the mighty MCG.

“Footy is back! Welcome back, everybody,” McGuire said, greeting co-hosts

Matthew Lloyd, Caroline Wilson, Ross Lyon, and Sam McClure.

Wilson said: “You’re back, too, Ed, that’s fantastic.”

McGuire replied; “It’s good to be here. I can tell you, for sure, that it’s an interesting time for me. For the first time since the Grand Final Footy Show in 1998, I’m an uncompromised football commentator again.

“I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it and discussing some big issues.”

Mystery had surrounded McGuire’s movements after he went to ground following his exit from the Magpies.
Asked by Wilson if he regretted describing a report into racism at the Magpies as a “proud day” for the club, McGuire said: “It’s not so much the regret. I apologised”.

“People took what I said the wrong way,” he continued.

“We hate racism, we are working so hard on equality. It’s a story of our time. Black lives matter.

“I was very proud we had taken a step no-one else has done, we set our club up to be a leader.

“There is a new sea change and we want to be ahead of it.

“I accept what I said.

“I wrote what I said, I read what I said.

“I’m not handing off blame to anybody else.

“I look back on it now and say we’ve made a bold step forward to try to do the right thing.”

Eddie McGuire briefly touched on his heartbreak over the death of friend Michael Gudinski.

McGuire said he resigned to “give the club fresh and clear air to do things,” adding: “My whole life has been dedicated to promulgating the great things of AFL football and the Collingwood Football Club.”

McGuire said he held no grudges against senior figures at the club who criticised him and denied Wilson’s claim that board members Paul Licuria and Peter Murphy turned on him, leading to his exit.

“The last thing I’m ever going to be is a rat on people at the Collingwood Football Club,” he said.

“I am not finished at the Collingwood Football Club. I’m going to go and barrack for the Pies, I’m a pie ‘til I die.

“I’m not one of these people who walks away hoping there will be schadenfreude and everything will fall on its head.

“I love what I did, I did my best, we made mistakes.”

Eddie McGuire says he holds no grudges against senior figures at the club who criticised him Picture: Jake Nowakowski

McGuire also said his relationship with coach Nathan Buckley, who was quiet during the saga, was fine.

“It’s such an emotional topic and a lot of people wanted to step forward and I said don’t,” he said.

“That’s not because I’m a martyr, it’s because we want to go forward.”

In his resignation speech, McGuire said he was going to take time away from his media commitments and it was expected to at least see him sit out the start of the AFL season.

McGuire, whose company Jam TV produces Footy Classified, kept everyone guessing with co-hosts Caroline Wilson and Craig Hutchison admitting on Monday night that they had no idea whether he would front for the midweek show.

It’s believed McGuire informed Channel 9 on Tuesday that he would be returning and was front and centre at the show’s planning meeting on Wednesday morning.

He did record new episodes of Millionaire Hot Seat last week, which showed he was getting back into the swing after five weeks away from the public eye.

A decision on when he returns to Fox Footy, where he is a host and commentator, has not been made.

Friends and family had been concerned about McGuire’s wellbeing after he went off the grid following his messy demise at Collingwood.

Meanwhile, McGuire said he will go to the footy on Friday night as “a supporter.”

“If I could be the fifth bloke on the bench on Friday night, I would be,” he said.

“If I could sit in the crowd with (Magpies cheer squad leader Joffa Corfe), I’d do that.

“But I’ll just go quietly to the game, and let the Collingwood Football Club go on.”