Michael Warner: AFL HQ bogged down in bureaucracy as confusion reigns across the game

Andrew Dillon is a decent man and football people want him to succeed. But the AFL CEO is being hamstrung by both his executive team and the commission above him, writes Michael Warner.

It’s not hard to comprehend why Andrew Dillon is struggling as AFL chief executive.

Dillon is a decent and collaborative man and almost everyone in football wants him to succeed.

But the league boss is severely hamstrung by a lightweight executive team below him and a C-grade commission above.

Compounding the growing sense of frustration among clubs and supporters is Dillon’s apparent unwillingness to make the hard decisions.

Laura Kane’s football department has lurched from one problem to another since she was promoted ahead of her time in August 2023.

The AFL’s top brass are under fire. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Confusion has reigned over umpiring inconsistencies and match review officer verdicts and now debacles surrounding the handling of incidents involving Willie Rioli and Lachie Schultz.

In openly advertising for an experienced 2IC to join him from clubland, Dillon has acknowledged that he needs more bench strength, but he also needs to be more decisive.

AFL HQ has become bogged down in its own bureaucracy.

“Clubs genuinely want Dills to go well because they feel that he listens, but he’s been told time and time again, ‘Mate – fix your team up’,” one industry figure said this week.

To be fair, many of the issues Dillon is grappling with today – the MRO, umpiring, Tasmania, the soft cap, coaches wages, talent pathways and AFLW – he inherited from his predecessor Gillon McLachlan.

Footy’s overlords got it horribly wrong when they brazenly disrespected former Tigers boss Brendon Gale during the CEO search two years ago.

Dillon himself was treated with contempt when AFL Commission chairman Richard Goyder made a bizarre eleventh-hour play for Western Bulldogs president Kylie Watson-Wheeler to replace McLachlan.

If the process had been managed properly, Gale could have easily agreed to work alongside Dillon.

As former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett declared on Wednesday, Goyder has long overstayed his welcome as the head of the AFL’s board of governance.

“The chairman, Mr Goyder, who is a friend of mine – a very nice man – is seeking another three-year term which would take him to something like 17 years (on the commission),” Kennett said.

“With due respect he should resign or indicate now that he is not going to seek another term. The AFL needs a massive shake-up and the club presidents have got to exercise their authority as the shareholders.”

Footy’s current issues don’t just lie at the feet of the current administration. Picture: David Crosling

The push is on for former Collingwood president Jeff Browne, current Swans chairman Andrew Pridham or Port Adelaide boss David Koch to consider taking over.

They are the type of hands-on leaders football needs. The sooner Goyder and a handful of his fellow timeserving commissioners go the better.

Kane is smart and capable, but it was a bold call to elevate her so prematurely, and the game has let her down by failing to surround her with the right support and seniority.

Others believe the AFL’s people and culture department acts as an obstacle rather than an enabler when it comes to making key appointments.

A circuit-breaker could be the imminent handing down of a review conducted by former West Coast Eagles chief Trevor Nisbett into the relationship between the 18 AFL clubs and head office.

Nisbett’s findings will not be pretty.

There is a creeping incompetence about the AFL administration and it is Dillon who must fix it.

Originally published as Michael Warner: AFL HQ bogged down in bureaucracy as confusion reigns across the game