Jeff Kennett says he's been approached to take over Melbourne board

MELBOURNE president Don McLardy says Jeff Kennett's vision for Melbourne has included mergers and relocation.

Demons don?t want Kennett help

MELBOURNE president Don McLardy says Jeff Kennett's vision for Melbourne has included mergers and relocation.

McLardy today hit back at Kennett's claims he could return the club to success on and off the field if he took over as president.

The former Hawthorn president and state premier says he has been approached by Melbourne figures to put together a board challenge.

"Over the last few years Jeff has been very vocal in his thoughts on our club," McLardy told the Demons website.

"His suggestions for our club have included merging with North Melbourne and moving to the Gold Coast. We don't believe Jeff's views on our club align with our members."

And Melbourne champion David Schwarz says Kennett is not the right man for the Demons - but he stopped well short of supporting McLardy.

"I don't think (Jeff is the right man for Melbourne) - he barracks for Hawthorn. You want someone to roll up their sleeves for the club, don't you?" Schwarz said.

Schwarz said if Kennett was a Melbourne fan his position would be very different.

"If he can lead the state, he can certainly lead a football club.

"I'm not saying that Don and the board have been terrible, but I reckon they're tired.

"They've had a really good run at it, they've done great jobs with finances and so forth but the way the footy department's been neglected, we can't ignore that."

Earlier today, Kennett called on Demon supporters to call an extraordinary general meeting to oust President Don McLardy.

"There's Melbourne members out there who have approached me in the past few weeks who have asked me would I be part of a group to run against the incumbent board," Kennett said on 3AW.

"I've called on the board to go, I can't believe they still sit there with so many failures on their hands.

I would never consider voting for a Jeff Kennett-led board. Not for a sec! #proudmember

— MFC Supporters (@demonsupporters) June 6, 2013

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"If I could get the Melbourne supporters to say, 'Enough's enough' and allow us to put together a board of five we'd give them 6-7 years to rebuild.

"Melbourne is a strong brand. It will survive but it needs a winning culture, it needs some passion and it needs good governance - it doesn't have any of that.

"You can keep fiddling while Rome burns but at some point the Melbourne supporters themselves are going to have to decide if they are going to let their club simply bottom out at the bottom of the ocean, or rise up and start rebuilding."

Kennett rejected suggestions by Collingwood president Eddie McGuire - and supported by Hawthorn - that the Demons be given extra cash in their salary cap to allow them to recover on the field.

"The solution proposed by Hawthorn and Collingwood is immorally wrong and I hope the AFL doesn't agree to it because that would simply be condoning failure."

He also controversially labelled GWS the "AFL's Gallipoli".

"I fear GWS is to Australian rules football what Gallipoli was to Australian forces in the First World War," he said.

"I don't think GWS will ever work.

"If we continue to push I fear the money brought in to support it will continue to cripple the rest of the clubs that run the competition.

"Do we continue to back this mistake out of pride, or say it doesn't work?

"I fear we are on the verge within the AFL of committing our own Gallipoli where leadership is not flexible enough to say we've made a mistake."

How do you compare a game of Footy to people dying in war? Senseless and absurd analogy.

— Kevin Sheedy (@Kevin_Sheedy) June 6, 2013