By Peter Ryan
New Collingwood president Mark Korda has vowed to be a less hands-on president than his predecessor Eddie McGuire, declaring that he will leave it up to football manager Graham Wright and CEO Mark Anderson to make a call on the future of coach Nathan Buckley.
Korda, who joined the board in May 2007, did not provide a timeline on when a recommendation would be made on Buckley, who is out of contract at the end of the season, saying on SEN radio on Thursday that he was happy to “leave it to Graham” to manage the evaluation of the Collingwood great.
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, pictured during a training session at the Holden Centre, is clear that the decision on his coaching future doesn’t rest with new president Mark Korda.Credit: Getty Images
“Whatever is in the best interests of the Collingwood Football Club will transpire,” Korda said.
“Nathan is a seriously competent person and passionate person, and a man of great integrity, and he and everybody will put the interests of the Collingwood Football Club first.
“We are going to do the process properly ... we are only five games into the season. There is plenty of the season left.”
McGuire accepted a recommendation from then football manager Geoff Walsh to re-appoint Buckley at the end of 2017, having engineered the controversial coaching succession plan which saw Buckley take over from premiership winning coach Mick Malthouse in 2012.
Due to his prominent media roles, McGuire became the public face of the club on a range of matters, both football and non-football, during his 22-year reign that ended when he stepped down in February in the wake of the ‘Do Better’ report.
Korda indicated he would be focused on governance and ensuring financial stability, with Anderson likely to do more interviews in his role as CEO than he would as president.
However Korda, who was appointed to the role as the club’s 13th president unanimously at Wednesday’s board meeting after sharing the job with fellow director Peter Murphy for the past two months, praised McGuire saying his “legacy is unsurpassed at Collingwood” after the former president called for people to get behind Korda.
That legacy has led to a potential vacuum, with one prominent sporting administrator saying he hoped it would not lead to egos being unleashed and instability at the Magpies.
With emotions high due to the team’s poor start to the season, prominent Collingwood figures backed Jeff Browne, a friend of McGuire’s, at the start of the week to take on the role with the spectre of an extraordinary general meeting being called to give members a vote on the role.
Collingwood has not had an extraordinary general meeting since McGuire assumed the presidency in 1998.
For one to be held, five per cent of the estimated 15,000 Magpies members who hold voting rights need to attach their signature in support of the proposition. Under the Magpies’ constitution, a person needs to have been a member for two years to become a board member.
Prominent Magpies supporter and sports administrator John Bertrand said he didn’t think such a meeting was required, backing Korda’s appointment and suggesting the club would be better off getting on with the work at hand.
“From my perspective, he’s a good pair of hands on the wheel,” Bertrand said.
“It’s a matter of getting on with it and empowering the very good people who are involved now.”
Lawyer, David Galbally, who served on the Magpies’ board in the late ’70s and early ’80s, said there was nothing controversial about Korda.
“I think it will be a very nice, quiet changeover of leadership which is very unlike Collingwood,” Galbally said.
“With an ounce of luck, Mark Korda will be accepted across the board.“
Korda defended his appointment against criticisms that it was more of the same at the Magpies, saying he represented “a connection to the past as we create changes for the future”.
However his appointment led to criticism on social media from former AFL player Joel Wilkinson - who was named in the Do Better report after he was subjected to racial taunts from Collingwood fans - who questioned how the change represented real progress.
Korda addressed fan concerns over the club’s actions during the trade period, saying they failed to adequately communicate the decisions to jettison players Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson and Tom Phillips during the trade period but the board was aware changes were planned after the club had fallen from second to sixth in the previous three seasons.
“We wanted to be proactive about replenishing the list,” Korda said.
He said former player and current board member Paul Licuria would oversee the football department’s list management decisions alongside Murphy, on behalf of the board.
The club also appointed VRC chairman Neil Wilson to the board to fill McGuire’s vacancy with another appointment expected at some point.
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