St Kilda’s struggles could see the club embroiled in off-field drama
ST KILDA is on the brink of a boardroom brawl with forces pushing for ex-Saints director and chief executive Jim Watts to replace Peter Summers as president.
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ST KILDA is on the brink of a boardroom brawl with forces pushing for ex-Saints director and chief executive Jim Watts to replace Peter Summers as president.
A figure close to the club said Summers’ position had become “untenable” with current director Andrew Bassat also being supported by some fellow board members to take on the Saints’ top job.
The Herald Sun revealed football director Andrew Thompson was on the way out with former coach Grant Thomas then weighing in, labelling the club’s leadership “pedestrian”.
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Bassat, chief executive of employment website SEEK, is the brother of AFL commissioner Paul Bassat but Watts, 63, is seen as the preferred candidate by some because he has the time to take on an executive chairman type role recently played by Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon.
Watts confirmed he had been approached and was willing to lead the embattled club if asked.
“I’m a St Kilda supporter and I care passionately about the club,” Watts told the Herald Sun.
“The people on the board are good people, committed to a strong St Kilda - on and off the field.
“But they are at the end of their five-year plan and I understand that they are looking at a process to reset the club’s objectives, which may or may not include some new appointments to the board.
“I have been approached and if I’m asked I’ll certainly give it some consideration, but I would not do anything to destabilise the club.”
Watts served two stints as St Kilda CEO in the early 2000s and was also vice-president under Rod Butterss.
He is the founding chairman of marketing and advisory company Bastion Collective.
His supporters point out St Kilda wiped off a $4 million debt under his leadership in the early 2000s and built a team that consistently played finals.
Another club insider said: “There will be two ways this goes down - peacefully or messily”.
Former coach Grant Thomas took aim at the club’s off-field leadership, questioning whether they had the know-how to deliver on-field success.
“You can have bad coaching appointments. It doesn’t mean it should end up as an unmitigated disaster, you can actually do things,” he told Macquarie Sports Radio.
“It gets amplified when you have senior people around that poor coaching decision that aren’t competent enough. At the moment you’ve got Peter Summers and you’ve got (CEO) Matt Finnis. They’re lovely people and they want the best thing for St Kilda but … I’m not sure they’re at the cutting edge of what’s required to be successful. They seem to me to be quite pedestrian.”
Asked how far away St Kilda are from their next flag, Thomas: “Decades. I mean it’s not in the foreseeable future.”
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