Craig Starcevich opens up on coaching Brisbane from Switzerland

Brisbane’s AFLW coach Craig Starcevich has signed on with the club — agreeing to terms from his home in Basel, Switzerland. Lauren Wood finds out how he coaches from abroad.

Football’s ultimate transcontinental double-life has been rewarded with a new deal with AFL Women’s master coach and frequent flyer Craig Starcevich to coach the Lions until at least the end of next year.

The Herald Sun can reveal that Starcevich is set to become the longest-serving AFLW coach having inked the new deal — agreeing to terms in Basel, Switzerland, no less.

The former AFL player and two-time AFLW premiership coach splits his time between Brisbane and the cultural capital of Switzerland on the banks of the Rhine, where his wife Sonia works for a pharmaceutical company.

He’s done so since Covid, with video calls back to Brisbane to meet with players, or to AFL House for meetings with headquarters, a regular occurrence as he strikes the balance as the game’s leading coach from abroad.

Brisbane Lions AFLW coach Craig Starcevich at his "home" in the Swiss Alps.

“(I do) more than people think (from Basel),” Starcevich explained.

“For me, there was a lot of stuff that we organise — getting pre-season organised and worked out, the off-season stuff worked out, we had some games with Sydney and Adelaide … one-on-ones over Zoom with players, which some like and some prefer you in person. There’s enough to keep you busy. A few meetings with the AFL, and then basically preparing and watching a lot of men’s games.

“That’s what I tend to do in March and April on my app overseas, I can get in three or four games a weekend in good timeslots. By the time the boys’ season comes around, I’m itching to get into it.”

He landed back in Australia on May 7 and went straight to the club’s Springfield base, which beat the jet lag and got him straight back into routine as pre-season — which started on Monday — loomed large.

Starcevich after the 2024 grand final defeat. Picture: Getty Images

This newest deal, that will see him through until the end of 2026 at least, comes as Starcevich affirms his fire to continue coaching has “changed, but not dimmed” as the Lions hunt revenge after falling short of North Melbourne in last year’s premiership decider.

He doesn’t know if it’s Basel that keeps him fresh — it’s simply become the norm of the last five years, having jetted between the two cities since Covid.

“(Lions CEO) Greg Swann is happy with that arrangement, given the length of the season. Until we have a longer season and until we have some sort of regimented competition for our least-experienced players through March/April/May … that’s actually at the moment where it’s at in terms of stuff that needs to get done,” he said.

“I’m going to say that that day is coming. For this little period, I was away from January to May, which was four months.

“In previous years, it’s been five and six months. So it’s getting shorter. Next year I can see it getting shorter again.”

He describes AFLW as being “in a bit of a state of flux” with full-time conditioning and medical staff, but the Lions and other clubs not having full-time coaches on hand as yet.

Clubs remain without a fixture for the upcoming season, which the league says will be released as soon as late next week.

But his time in Europe has convinced Starcevich of one major factor, saying it is simply a must for the AFL to consider as a prospect for an opening or Gather Round style initiative — particularly for AFLW.

“I went to Lyon in France for a weekend in April where they have a Champions League (for European Australian rules teams),” he said.

“They invite in all the winners from the previous year and they come together and have a weekend. It’s actually something that someone from head office should come over and actually see, because it’s quite a gathering of different countries and different cultures but they’re all playing AFL footy, which is great.

The premiership coach is well-travelled. Picture: AFL Photos

“If we want to go overseas and do something, we should do something in London. If we want to have an opening weekend … facility-wise, they’ve got the oval-shaped fields for us. It’s always been the biggest sticking point when people have thought about having a game in America or wherever, it’s finding a venue. But we could have a super opening-round game in the men’s or women’s in the UK.”

Starcevich regularly travels to Ireland to meet with the families of Irish Lions players and said it would be a natural fit, encouraging the league not to be scared to try something new with the burgeoning competition.

“Anyone who’s a friend, relative, acquaintance … will always stop you and talk about AFLW,” he said of Ireland.

“Their knowledge and consumption of the game in Ireland — particularly AFLW — is huge, and something we should be capitalising on. That opportunity to go and play a game there, in whatever format — club game as an opener, or an International Rules game — I think we should be having a crack at that.”

Originally published as Craig Starcevich opens up on coaching Brisbane from Switzerland