By Jake Niall
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” - Cersei Lannister, from the “Game of Thrones” series
In the three weeks since he ascended to Carlton’s answer to the iron throne, Luke Sayers has presided over the removal of a coach, the replacement of half of his board, and a messy first crack at replacing David Teague with an experienced coach.
Cain Liddle (top left), Greg Williams, Luke Sayers (centre), Ross Lyon, and Brian Cook (bottom right) all loom as key figures in Carlton’s game of thrones.Credit: The Age
Amid fierce external criticism and obvious internal divisions that were evident in the non-appointment of Ross Lyon, the newly-crowned Carlton president has also overseen a review of the club’s football operations that saw assistant coaches discarded and could yet see further changes.
Most audaciously, as reported by The Age last week, Sayers has sounded out the game’s most celebrated club chief executive, Brian Cook, about taking over at the helm of the troubled Blues - an offer made while the current Carlton CEO, Cain Liddle, remains in his position.
There was an awkward moment, indeed, at a staff meeting on Thursday, when Sayers and board member and recruitment executive David Campbell provided a briefing on the unfolding situation at the club.
The question was posed by a staff member about the position of the CEO. By now, everyone knew that Sayers had been in contact with Cook, who has declined to comment to date and probably will avoid the topic of his future until Geelong’s season ends.
In response to the question, Sayers said he did not rule out further changes, a stance that applies not only to the CEO position, but to football boss Brad Lloyd.
Liddle then chimed in and noted that there was a new leadership at board level and that Sayers was doing what one would expect. Unsaid was the brutal reality that the winds of change may sweep him out.
Arguably, Liddle played the Game of Thrones, himself, when he removed Stephen Silvagni as list manager at the end of 2019 - citing a conflict of interest over Silvagni’s sons on the playing list - making the well-connected “SOS” a thorn in his side from outside. Liddle knew the risks at the time.
Cook is finishing up as CEO at Geelong after 22 years, and while he has a part-time consulting gig with the Cats on offer, Sayers, in effect, has offered him an opportunity to repair the one-time competition colossus, a club that has sacked four senior coaches in contract over nine years, and which has been viewed with a measure of derision within the AFL world for their clumsy handling of the coaching position.
As one seasoned official at a rival club observed, Carlton of the past few weeks has been “more like Fawlty Towers″ - the celebrated John Cleese comedy about a shambolic seaside hotel - than Game of Thrones.
While Sayers seeks to restore Carlton to the powerhouse that won eight flags from 1968 until 1995 and is trying to create the club anew, he has also turned to the past in his quest for a new coach - appointing their 1990s champion Greg Williams to the board as football director and triple Carlton premiership coach David Parkin on to the six member coach-search panel.
At Carlton, the past lives in the present.
What’s the relevance of Carlton’s history to the current situation?
Carlton has long been ruled directly or heavily influenced by powerful money men, who are either presidents or shadow shoguns, such as the late Laurie Kerr, the driving force behind the replacement of seminal president George Harris in an upheaval that saw the great Jezza, Alex Jesaulenko, depart the club after the 1979 premiership.
It has been many decades since Carlton did not operate under the influence of at least one member of their “five families″ - the term one well-connected supporter used and a jesting reference to the five mafia families of New York.
Foremost of the families are: the house of Pratt, featuring the cardboard billionaire the late Richard Pratt and his wife Jeanne, who has just left the club board aged 84, and the house of Mathieson, whose patriarch Bruce Mathieson senior is the billionaire operator of the nation’s biggest gaming and hotel empire and the club’s heaviest financial backer via his pokies venues.
The wealthy and philanthropic Smorgon family - including ex-president Graham Smorgon and his late benefactor father Sam Smorgon - are another to have been intrinsic to Carlton, along with the Elliotts - which really means long-serving president John Elliott, who was so instrumental in forging the win-at-all-costs Carlton culture, but who also oversaw the club’s descent into huge debt and crippling draft penalties for salary cap rorts.
The Kerrs, the fifth family, have faded into Carlton’s storied past. The Pratts, once huge figures at Carlton, tip in fewer dollars than they did when ex-president Richard Pratt was at his zenith.
But Mathieson venues still contribute more than $3 million annually to Carlton’s improved, but COVID-interrupted bottom line and although the Blues, under Liddle and Sayers’ predecessor Mark LoGiudice, have created successful alternate revenue streams, there is still some reliance upon Big Bruce’s venues.
His nephew Craig, has been on the club board since 2012 and like Uncle Bruce, Craig Mathieson is known to be close to Stephen Silvagni, another scion of a famed Carlton family, although the Silvagnis earned their stature on the field.
Mathieson senior, who lives on the Gold Coast, recently made known to Sayers that he favoured one of either Ross Lyon or Alastair Clarkson as senior coach. Stephen Silvagni is one of Lyon’s closest football friends, a reality that signalled to many within the club that if “Ross” was in, Liddle - and likely Lloyd - would be out.
As it stands today, neither will coach the Blues - Clarkson because he’s declined their overtures.
Lyon withdrew after expressing concern about the nature of the process to appoint a coach. Once seemingly framed as an executive search - in which prime candidates are more or less headhunted - Lyon learned from Sayers that there would be a 30-45 day process.
And while Lyon has not said so on his media platforms, Carlton insiders say he would have been mindful of the presence of Liddle and Lloyd on the coach-search panel. Some within the club believe that his confidential settlement with a Fremantle staffer was an issue for a couple of board members. It is a moot point now, however, as Lyon has bailed.
It is a quirk that that pair are on that panel when their jobs are not guaranteed and, in Liddle’s case, the betting is against him hanging on.
Who is Luke Sayers, and what’s his agenda?
Sayers built his business name as CEO of PwC, where he was chief executive until mid-2019, having since set up his own business.
Luke Sayers during a breakfast interview with the Australian Financial Review.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
While big accounting firms are hardly racy operations, former associates and people who’ve dealt with Sayers say he’s atypical of the accounting firm leaders, in that he’s more of an entrepreneur and a charismatic CEO, who likes to rub shoulders with the powerful and can hold a room.
Sayers is close to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and to the federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg, both of whom attended his 50th birthday in 2019.
“He’s a big personality and a presence,” said Essendon president Paul Brasher, a friend and former mentor of Sayers at PwC, where Sayers excelled in addressing “town hall” meetings, not unlike those he’s stood before at Carlton since taking over.
“He has a lot of charisma and he inspires them (staff),” added Brasher, who also led a review of Essendon’s operations after last season that saw changes made, including some moves that Sayers and Carlton have emulated - the appointment of a club legend (Kevin Sheedy) to the board, in part for football expertise, but clearly also with a political motive, as the club faced fan unrest.
Sayers has been taking soundings from an array of Carlton people, including former AFL chairman and premiership captain Mike Fitzpatrick and ex-skipper and trenchant media commentator Mark “Sellers” Maclure. He speaks occasionally with Bruce Mathieson.
What are the coaching options, and where’s the fan unrest?
Maclure, never one to withhold an opinion, believes Carlton do not necessarily need an Alpha coach, such as the unavailable Clarkson, Lyon or one of the Scott brothers, Geelong’s Chris and ex-North coach Brad, who is favoured to take over half of Steve Hocking’s football duties at the AFL if he chooses.
“There are some diamonds in the rough,” Maclure told The Age. “You don’t need the most expensive coach.”
The Blues, having missed out on Clarkson and Lyon and with the Scott brothers representing unknowns for different reasons, have already indicated their process will be opened up to assistant coaches, along the lines of the Collingwood search that landed Craig McRae, meaning Michael Voss (a former senior coach at Brisbane), Richmond’s Adam Kingsley, West Coast’s Jamie Graham and others will potentially get a look-in.
This would defy Sayers’ initial position, however, which was that Blues needed an experienced coach after consecutive, short-lived first-timers Teague and Brendon Bolton.
Sayers has been on the Carlton board since the end of 2012 and thus played a part - whatever portion - in the various coach and executive cullings (CEO Steven Trigg was removed in 2017, football boss Andrew McKay in 2018. Sayers was not on the board for Brett Ratten’s sacking, though).
This has created a vulnerability for him with a section of members. Vince Loccisano, the former Carltonians coterie head and life member, has handed over a petition with 100 signatures seeking a spill of all eight board positions at an extraordinary general meeting.
Loccisano’s view is that the club has been beholden to moneyed interests for too long, has failed on football and must face the members. “They are not prepared to relinquish their power and control.“
He has been approaching prominent past players to put together a ticket, telling The Age that he was undecided whether he wanted to stand eight candidates against the club board or a smaller number, Sayers having appointed four fresh directors including the popular Williams.
Facing a coach appointment, a possible board challenge and potential replacement of a CEO, Sayers has shown that, whether he succeeds or not, he has grasped the Carlton crown.
He’ll do it his way, in the Carlton tradition.
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