Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan signs two-year extension with club

Fresh from leading Brisbane to a first flag in 21 years, senior coach Chris Fagan has re-signed with the club. JAY CLARK has the details.

Brisbane Lions has re-signed premiership coach Chris Fagan for a further two seasons on the back of the club’s remarkable flag triumph.

Fagan, who was already locked-in for 2025, will continue to lead the Lions until the end of 2027 after a board meeting on Wednesday confirmed the deal.

Brisbane announced a two-year extension for the 63-year-old former school teacher on Thursday as the Lions attempt to go back-to-back next season.

The multi-year deal is a brilliant recognition for the senior coach who has taken the Lions from the bottom of the ladder, after a disastrous three-win season in 2016, to the top in 2024.

Fagan has made clear the club remained hungry for more success after adding arguably the best player in the draft, Levi Ashcroft, to the midfield mix for next season.

Chris Fagan has re-signed with Brisbane. Picture: Getty Images

And the new extension means he will likely be off-limits to new club Tasmania who will ramp up their search for a coach next year ahead of its AFL entry in 2028.

Since joining Brisbane, Fagan has built one of the best coaching records in the game over his eight years in charge, leading the Lions to finals in each of the past six campaigns.

“I’m grateful that the club wants me to continue as coach for a few more years,” Fagan said.

“I am fortunate that Greg Swann and our board have always backed me in - particularly through the tough times.

“The playing group is full of character and talent, and it has been a real privilege to coach them.

“I look forward to all the challenges that lay ahead for us, safe in the knowledge that our players are fully committed to the process of continuous improvement and that we have a football department focussed on providing the optimal environment for this to occur.”

Brisbane Lions CEO Greg Swann said Fagan was an outstanding coach.

“Extending Chris’ contract was an easy decision because he has shown since we first appointed him that he was a special coach,” Swann said.

“His on-field record speaks for itself having led the club to a Premiership this season, a Grand Final last year and six consecutive finals series in total.

“What is as impressive is the culture he has helped create here which sees everyone become the best version of themselves.

“He has taken this club from bottom of the ladder to a premiership, and we look forward to more success under his leadership.”

Excluding his first two rebuilding years, Fagan has a 68.97 per cent winning record including finals, narrowly shading the career totals of Collingwood boss Craig McRae (68.92 per cent) and Geelong mastermind Chris Scott (68.11).

Fagan has shown enormous patience and resilience in that time, helping the Lions bounce back from the hurt of the 2023 Grand Final loss to demolish Sydney Swans in the premiership decider by 60 points.

And the club’s culture has flourished, with stars Cameron Rayner and Hugh McCluggage recently turning down big free agency offers from rivals back home in Victoria to recommit to the Lions under Fagan.

But it hasn’t been without significant pressure and personal hardship as Fagan withstood the intense focus of Hawthorn’s racism saga, a private health scare earlier this year, and scrutiny on his job.

Fagan is loved by his players at the Lions. Picture: Getty Images

The blowtorch fell on the club after a slow 4-6 start to the season this year amid a terrible run of five season-ending ACL injuries, the death of a popular staff member and horrific goal kicking accuracy.

But Fagan, who channeled a Leigh Matthews mantra that the coach “has to be the calmest person” at the club, urged the players to dismiss the mounting pressure and return to their playing strengths as part of a barnstorming back half of the year.

Matthews and Fagan embrace after the siren at the MCG as the Lions win the 2024 premiership. Picture: Channel 7

“We had an open conversation about the pressure we were under as a footy club and what that (pressure) felt like for them and what it felt like for me. I said ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ Fagan said on the eve of finals.

“We’ve got to enjoy each other’s company and play with our brotherhood trademark and they embraced that idea, and it still gets talked about.

“We said ‘We may as well dance’, and we have been on that theme ever since.”

Fagan’s appointment was an inspired decision from Brisbane Lions who overlooked more fancied and credentialed candidates in late 2016 to pluck him out of Hawthorn where Fagan was football manager.

He played a key off-field role in four Hawthorn premierships and this year became the first premiership senior coach to have never played a game of football at the top level.