Craig Kelly and Craig McRae revealed one of the AFL’s worst-kept secrets on the eve of round 23 when they summoned key football coaches and staffers at Collingwood’s Olympic Park headquarters to tell them that football boss Graham Wright would not be coming back to the club.
Although Kelly had not spoken to his old friend, colleague and former teammate Wright for weeks, it was the CEO who broke the news before stepping aside for reigning premiership coach McRae. The second Craig – or “Fly” as almost everyone in football calls him – then addressed the group, acknowledging that it had been a tough season where some key decisions and appointments had not worked. Kelly later addressed the entire staff and apologised for the sometimes-disruptive year.
Graham Wright and Craig Kelly.Credit: Penny Stephens
The saying that everything is never as good as it seems and nor is everything as bad can be applied to the Magpies over 2023 and 2024. The last angry conversation between Kelly and Wright took place about six weeks ago when the latter was travelling through Italy, but the premiership season was occasionally punctuated with them as well.
Wright’s tenure at Collingwood predated Kelly. The last key appointment made by Eddie McGuire, the respected list manager and football boss came from Hawthorn and stepped into a club emotionally spent from COVID on and off the field and facing a multimillion-dollar salary-cap disaster.
Over a 2021 dominated by board upheaval, Wright negotiated Nathan Buckley’s gracious departure, oversaw McRae’s appointment and handled the Brodie Grundy exit. He went on to lead the retention of Jordan De Goey and stepped in as interim club chief executive until Kelly’s appointment. And yet now he has gone.
New chief executive Kelly had bigger plans for Collingwood and its footballers than his predecessor Mark Anderson. There was one big argument between Kelly and Wright in the middle of 2023 when both men had their say in a fiery exchange. The entrepreneurial Kelly accused Wright of repeatedly knocking back his suggestions and Wright stuck to his guns in the belief that football was his domain.
“I’ve had disagreements with Wrighty for 20 years,” said Kelly this week. “I regularly disagree with him, and he does with me.” Of his current relationship with Wright, Kelly said: “We haven’t spoken for a while.”
Still the club was not expecting Wright’s resignation last November and instead agreed upon a sabbatical season where Wright would return at the end of August after travelling through the US, the Middle East and Europe with his wife Tracey. Although Wright was retained as a consultant, that role finished up being relatively minimal. Reports reached the Wrights as early as April that he would not be returning to Collingwood.
Wright, who was contacted this week but chose not to comment, has told friends he was disappointed in the manner in which his tenure ended at the club but has acknowledged it would have proved too difficult to return due to the falling out with Kelly, whom he has credited with making some good decisions. He also remains on good terms with McRae and has backed McRae’s denials that the players over-celebrated after last year’s premiership.
Kelly explains the off-field issues thus: “The club, after winning the grand final, was put in a position which had us one man down. There was certain change that was thrown upon us. We asked people to play different roles, and we worked to develop different people. Hindsight’s a great thing, but people stepped up to the plate.
Collingwood coach Craig McRae (second from right) last year with his brains trust of (from left) Hayden Skipworth, Brendon Bolton and Justin Leppitsch.Credit: AFL Photos
“We tried new things. Some worked and some caused little ripples. Did we get everything right? Did we make mistakes? Yes. We make mistakes all the time, just like football teams do.”
Kelly denied that running a football club presented challenges he had not faced when running his successful marketing, athlete management, and promotional agency, TLA. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “Exactly the same. Except at a football club it becomes a media story. And the week in, week out demands for success are more intense.”
Kelly also took issue with the suggestion that president Jeff Browne was leading the restructure of the football operation after a year of upheaval and some disharmony. “He’s not,” said Kelly. “We are.”
Every senior administrator at the club contacted this week denied that Kelly’s increasingly heavy involvement in football in 2024 had been part of the problem. And yet it was outgoing president Browne who stepped in to negotiate with Wright and ultimately navigate his departure, and Browne who is overseeing the search for his replacement and who has contacted candidates such as Port Adelaide’s Chris Davies.
Collingwood board member Barry Carp.
Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning. And yet the club remains adamant it can recruit another highly regarded football boss, despite prioritising soft-cap spending elsewhere.
Browne, who will depart the presidency next year and make way for director Barry Carp, strongly backed Kelly after he was accused by a former employee in July of using racially inappropriate language and conduct. Kelly refused to discuss those allegations this week but his colleagues and Browne have insisted that the potential scandal and potentially forthcoming court case was not the reason for the board’s hands-on intervention in football. And yet for all of his famously brash, gregarious confidence, the accusations must have rattled Kelly, as did an incorrect recent report that he had been sacked.
The off-field state of play at Collingwood as the club licks its wounds after narrowly missing the finals is that Justin Leppitsch and Brendon Bolton – the two men who stepped up to replace Wright during his season-long sabbatical – will remain despite an occasionally fractious relationship.
Clare Pettyfor, who started the season as head of operations and women’s football, left and joined Gary Pert’s executive team at Melbourne.
Wright returned home last weekend and his belongings left behind at the club have been returned to him. He has held talks with Tasmania’s CEO-elect Brendon Gale and also met AFL bosses Andrew Dillon and Laura Kane since his return, with the league contemplating a new senior football role overseeing player movement, list management and the implementation of the 19th team.
Former Brisbane Lions coach and three-time premiership player Leppitsch will take over the Magpies’ list-management role, while former Carlton coach Bolton will vacate the full-time football duties he shouldered this season to play a development and leadership role across the entire club. Friction between Bolton and Leppitsch predates their current football roles, with the pair known to clash semi-regularly in the coaches box.
Away from football, Collingwood’s commercial and membership boss Ian Paterson has quit to join News Corp and been replaced by Chris Larkins from St Kilda. And Kelly has lured his TLA legal boss Susan Harper to the Magpies to take on an executive role in compliance.
The generous view of the state of affairs at Collingwood is that a competitive correction was due at the club after the seismic change brought on by the Do Better-led political upheaval and the disastrous state of the club’s total player payments of 2021. That was immediately followed by McRae’s stunning first two seasons, which began with a one-point preliminary final loss and then a premiership. The team ended the 2024 season on a high note – and, after all, won 12 games with two draws – and could well boast another Brownlow medallist come grand final week.
McRae denied on 3AW recently Leigh Matthews’ suggestion that the February/March timing of the grand final documentary could have had a negative impact upon performance, but there is no doubt some of the negative commentary that has come the club’s way this season came off the back of not only disappointing performances and internal disharmony but also some public moments of post-premiership off-field hubris.
Browne, Kelly, McRae, Leppitsch and co. have the clout and the cash, and significantly more time in this off-season, to restructure the football operation. Judging by some of the internal disputes, the off-field bloodletting is not yet complete as the departing president Browne and his team work to create Collingwood in Geelong’s image.
For now, though, the collateral damage has been the friendship forged over more than three decades between Craig Kelly and Graham Wright.
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