Sydney Swans to query director Tim Worner over ‘appropriateness’

The Sydney Swans will ask Seven West chief Tim Worner to consider “appropriateness” of remaining on board.

Channel 7 boss Tim Worner. Picture: Justin Lloyd

The Sydney Swans will ask embattled Seven West Media chief executive Tim Worner to consider the “appropriateness” of remaining on the club’s board, following intense pressure by prominent ­female club members to have him removed.

In a charged exchange during an event exclusively for female Swans fans on Monday night, club chief executive Andrew Ireland was asked why Mr Worner, who has come under fire for racing horses with names such as Centrefold Spread and Legs Akimbo as well as his affair with a junior ­employee, was an appropriate fit for the club’s board.

Mr Ireland said “the difficulty you get to is, I don’t believe there is a position the club could reasonably take with Tim to say to him that he can’t be a director of this club”.

He added: “I think there are discussions that can take place about the appropriateness of being a director of this club, and I think those discussions are the appropriate way to deal with it. And the outcomes of those discussions, we’ll see over a period of time.”

Mr Ireland was quizzed by prominent corporate headhunter and long-time Swans fan Esther Clerehan, who began her question by listing the names of some of the racehorses in Mr Worner’s syndicate. “Legs Akimbo, Chicks Dig Me, She Likes To Party, Hot Business, Centrefold Spread … these are some of the racehorse names in Tim Worner’s syndicate,” she said, before asking if he truly represented the Swans’ “core values”.

She said Mr Worner had an affair with a company PA, Amber Harrison, who says she was “kicked to the kerb” when the affair was over. “Surely his corporate governance is an issue?” she said.

“And gagging Harrison while having (Seven board member) Jeff Kennett publicly attack her when she’s unable to defend herself looks very much to me like a bunch of senior men bullying a woman employee.

“How does Sydney Swans square with having Worner continuing to sit on the Swans board, when he represents such opposite core values (to the club)?”

Channel 7 boss Tim Worner. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Her question was applauded by the group of 40 female Swans supporters who gathered for finger food and drinks at the club’s headquarters on Monday night.

Ms Clerehan’s question, asked before an audience including former AFL commissioner and recent Swans board appointee Sam Mostyn, came directly after Mr Ireland had explained the club’s diversity ­action plan, aimed at getting more women involved, including a proposal for a women’s team.

Mr Ireland said the issue of Mr Worner’s troubles were “one of the hardest issues to deal with in footy clubs. This is a very public one … On face value, I can only judge him on what he does here; Tim, as a director of the Sydney Swans football club, has been first class, and has done excellent work for us.

“That’s the starting point. His actions at Seven, he himself would admit aren’t great.”

He added: “In term of judgment around what he’s done in a legal sense, we can only go by what Seven says. In terms of drug use, which is probably one of two issues that I would have in terms of being a director of the club, he denies it emphatically.

“As a footy club, we’ll treat it in the way that’s appropriate … We’ve got a great track record of dealing appropriately with people who were close to us who haven’t been perfect.”

Mr Worner offered his resignation to Swans chairman Andrew Pridham earlier this year but it was rejected.