‘They probably won’t like this interview’: Mark Robinson goes one-on-one with Peter Jess – the AFL’s worst nightmare
Peter Jess and the AFL is a curious relationship. Mostly it’s a cold war, occasionally it’s a nuclear war, and it’s a war Jess won’t ever retreat from. This is why.
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Depending on who you talk to, Peter Jess is the most hated, the most dangerous or the most influential person in the AFL world.
“Hated? Dangerous is better than hated. And it’s true. I am dangerous,’’ Jess says.
“I don’t like using the word hate. It creates platforms and pathways which are not good. I’m more than happy to be the most feared.”
Asked why, he says in a typically spirited response: “Because I’m not afraid to take on the big corporation which is the AFL. This is a multi-billion dollar group and I’m sitting out here as a struggling suburban accountant without a computer and I take them on.”
One of those comments is a lie – he’s far from a struggling suburban accountant, he’s very successful.
Two others are not – he hasn’t used a computer since a motorbike crash in 2006 and instead writes longhand on paper which his assistant types into the system, and, in a work sense, he takes no prisoners.
How to describe him?
He’s 72, stands 5’3 in the old, has lost sight in one eye after a car crash in 1971, almost died in the bike accident in ’06, has battled prostate cancer for 20 years, and when he laughs, he cackles like The Penguin in the first of the Batman movies.
He’s eccentric, a hoarder, wears three-piece suits, has a surfboard as a desk, has married twice and drives to Avoca and back to Melbourne almost every Saturday, Avoca being the place where his grandfather was a truck driver and where his father grew up.
He’s a ferocious concussion campaigner and activist.
In the 1980s, he was a player manager pioneer and had players such as Gary Ablett Snr, the Madden brothers, Greg Williams, Nicky Winmar and cousin Jimmy Jess as clients, and still to this day has on his books a handful of men’s and women’s players.
In the 1990s-2000s, he largely travelled on the world athletics circuit as part of Cathy Freeman’s entourage.
In the 2000s, he had clients from a range of sports: Jobe Watson, Steve Hooker, Craig Mottram, Mark Viduka, Josh Kennedy, Mark Bresciano, Cameron White, Brad Hodge, Irish rugby union player Brian O’Driscoll, Australian rugby union players Nick Phipps and David Pocock, coach Michael Cheika, Kiwi Andrew Hoare, basketballer Trisha Fallon, legendary mountain skier Andrea Binning, rugby league player, AFL converts Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau and boxer Azumah Nelson.
He has argued with and against the AFL, the AFL Players Association, Athletics Australia, Cricket Australia, the National Soccer League, various state and local governments and federal governments and, on a whim, helped set up the Kerry Surfing Club in Ireland by sending over six surf boards and in return was sent back a clay figurine, made by a local sculptor, of him surfing.
He helped set up The Humour Foundation with Dr Peter Spitzer and renowned clown performer Jean Paul Bell, which sends doctors dressed as clowns to pediatric wards around Australia and, in support, he once walked the 700kms from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Spain to raise awareness.
He’s run footy talent identification camps in Chile, Argentina and South Africa, and has fought the fight for indigenous rights.
“People know I have been involved as a campaigner for indigenous rights for a long period of time and I don’t shirk that,” he says.
Closer to home, he was neck deep in the Essendon supplement scandal, knees deep in the Hawthorn racism scandal, has helped former players such as Shaun Smith receive a $1million-plus concussion pay out, and too often for his liking takes calls from families of past and current AFL players with horror stories as a result of head knocks.
In his youth, he was, he says, Golden Glove level in boxing, was adept in taekwondo, and one time on an Australian International Rules tour to Ireland, and with former Herald Sun footy writer Daryl Timms as witness, beat up three local lads after one of them pulled on his pigtail a second time – after being warned not do it after the first time.
“I’m not going to get pushed around,” Jess says.
And what did Timmsy do?
“He shat himself,” he says with the cackle.
His accounting offices in Essendon, a block from Windy Hill, is the capital of Cluttersville.
His desk is covered with papers, notes and folders and sitting in his work tray is a Viking helmet.
On shelves behind his desk there are bottles of wine, a Charlie Chaplin figurine, a hurling stick, various military hats, a miniature cannon, a miniature Mack truck and a two-foot Jesus bust – “Someone thought I needed a bit of moral uplifting,” he says – and on Jesus’ head is a cap from the 1998 soccer World Cup in Paris.
On one wall is a signed poster from Doc Neeson of The Angels – “To PJ, the best bean counter in the business – Doc Neeson,” it says – and there’s a signed guitar from The Rolling Stones crew, and a photograph of Jess and Ronnie Wood.
“I met him in London at his art gallery … I just started talking to him.”
The last of the musical love is a signed poster and photo with U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr.
“I met him through Irish middle distance runner Sonia O’Sullivan,’’ he says.
On another wall is a four by three foot photo montage of his 2013 hike of the Kokoda Trail which he walked, in part, wearing a clown suit to the fascination and delight of villagers.
“And dispensing smiles along the way,” he says.
There’s a “boxing” room next door. In it and framed are signed gloves and posters from Mohammed Ali, Azumah Nelson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Lionel Rose and Manny Pacquiao.
There’s the “soccer” room.
“Ronaldo, Pele, Maradona all signed them, Roy Keane, and this one with all the Australian blokes I worked for who played in the 2006 World Cup in Germany,’’ he says.
“Roy Keane took me into the rooms at Old Trafford. I was working with Paul Stretford who was the manager of Wayne Rooney.”
Elsewhere, there’s a signed Usain Bolt running shirt.
“It was at the world championships in Berlin in 2009, and I met him through Maurie Plant,” he says.
There’s shoes worn by O’Sullivan when she broke the world record for the mile in ’99, a photo montage signed by Rodney Hogg, a signed Dustin Martin canvas and one of his favourites, a black and white photo of the Adelaide Oval signed by Ian and Greg Chappell and Sir Don Bradman.
“They hated each other, the brothers wouldn’t sign anything he signed, so I got them to sign it first and then I got Don to sign it,’’ he says.
There’s multiple Cathy Freeman memorabilia – “I handed her the Aboriginal and Australian flags at the world championships at Athens in 1997’’ – and in one photo, he excitedly pointed at the grainy head of a spectator among at least hundred spectators.
“That’s me,” he says.
Did we say he was a touch eccentric?
INSIDE JESS’ CURIOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AFL
JESS and the AFL is a curious relationship. Mostly it’s a cold war, occasionally it’s a nuclear war, and it’s a war Jess won’t ever retreat from.
Jess’ concussion reform crusade – and eternal fight for the underdog – is born from two incidents.
“I was playing under 15s for Highett and I wanted a transfer to Black Rock but they refused to give me a transfer,” he says.
“I had to fight it at the tribunal and I said that I’d always fight that injustice that I couldn’t have a voice about where I wanted to play, and I followed that through in all my sports life.’’
The other is the motorbike accident.
T-boned by a car running a stop sign, which did a runner, Jess cracked three vertebrae in his neck, four in his back, broke nine ribs, punctured a lung, fractured his jaw and suffered severe head trauma.
Part of his therapy was undergoing neuroplasticity, which in basic terms is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganisation.
For months, Jess was light sensitive, sleep-deprived, suffered cluster headaches, lost his balance and endured mood swings which required anger management.
Sound familiar?
“When I lost my balance, they said I had Meniere’s disease, that’s what Brent Crosswell had,’’ he says.
“A lot of blokes who have brain damage and head trauma suffer from it.
“But I managed to overcome it through neuroplasticity.
“And what I was seeing was clinical outcomes, and exactly what I was suffering from, from guys who were playing football. So, then the question was: Does football create brain damage and yes it does. It was the extent which we didn’t know.”
So began the crusade in the ever-developing concussion galaxy.
Jess believed players had grounds to sue the AFL and clubs over concussion management, and he urged WorkSafe Victoria to investigate if football was a safe workplace.
He has helped former players undergo deep brain observation, which includes MEG scans which utilises delta and gamma waves to assess the level of brain damage.
“It’s cutting-edge science,” he says.
He has written to the AFL countless times, to medical experts and to the state and federal government.
Occasionally, it has landed him in trouble.
He is currently being sued after he arranged for 19 former players to have their brains scanned and full payment for the scans has not been paid.
“It will sort itself out,” Jess says.
In recent times, the concussion debate exploded when Prof Paul McCrory’s 2002 declaration – which was accepted by major sports around the world – that the impact of concussion was only ‘transitory’’ was, in 2022, tainted by plagiarism claims.
“It was false evidence,’’ Jess says. “I warned the AFL in 2019 that his science did not match up to the clinical outcomes we were seeing.’’
Jess puts pressure on the AFL’s position on concussion.
While the AFL has improved concussion protocols, which includes in-game testing and strict rules around head contact, Jess believes a complete reset is needed, which includes concussion passports for all players, including pre-draft, and at least a month on the sidelines for players with concussion.
“I’ve got a nine-point plan which I sent to the AFL,’’ he says.
“We’re not putting in place the proper support for people with an acquired brain damage playing at any level.’’
For a decade, it’s been pistols at 10 paces for Jess and the AFL.
Sometimes, it’s been a war of words with former AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, who is not a fan.
“I wrote to the chairman of the AFL in 2019 and said the medicine and science of Paul McCrory was a danger to your player cohort, that he had to review all of his work,’’ Jess says. “He didn’t respond. He still hasn’t.”
“The AFL unfortunately is the most arrogant organisation I’ve ever struck.
“Gill and I crossed paths, generally on a Friday night. He’d have more red wine than me, we used to argue quite frequently. He’d ring me and I’d ring him, but I always drink better red than him.”
How did those conversations end? “Badly. Unfortunately, I’d think he’d describe me as uncouth.”
How did that make you feel? “I don’t give a f***.”
‘THEY PROBABLY WON’T LIKE THIS INTERVIEW’
SOME people in life say they don’t care what others think of them, when really they do, and there are some who really don’t care. Jess is one of them.
He doesn’t know where it comes from, although he has tried to discover where he came from, travelling to Italy, Switzerland and northern Germany to determine family foundations.
“My grandfather … well, the Jess name is German and my grandmother was a Lanfranche, the princesses of the papal court,” he says.
“We traced ourselves back to Charlemagne on my grandmother’s side to the 1200s and on the other side, we traced ourselves to Eric the Red the Viking.”
Hence, the Viking helmet.
His competitive nature was evident on the footy field, but when playing for St Kilda under-19s in 1966-67, other areas let him down.
“I remember being confronted by Allan Jeans (senior coach). Yabby said ‘you need to look like a footballer son, you’ve got to get a haircut and shave if you’re going to play in my teams’. I had long hair, I was a surfer.”
His biggest footy stories include Greg Williams’ move from Sydney to Carlton in 1991, which then Sydney president Mike Willesee tried to scupper by suing Jess for inducing a breach of contract, Winmar leaving St Kilda for Footscray at the end of 1998 – “that was the saddest story,” Jess says – and helping to mastermind the $1million-plus deals for Hunt and Folau to the Suns and Giants.
And Essendon’s Nathan Lovett-Murray drugs/supplement case still sits in the Federal Court.
“What happened to Jobe Watson was unconscionable,” he says.
“What happened to the players was the biggest injustice I’ve seen in our sport.’’
At 72, Jess is supposed to be winding down in life, yet he has the tenacity of a 35-year political activist.
And he’s not planning to stop soon.
“I will work as long as I can because it’s not a job,’’ he says. “Once it becomes a job I will stop. I love what I do. I love helping people.’’
Asked how he would describe himself, he says: “Good company, very loyal, great friend, horrible enemy.
“Look, I use publicity as a weapon. The press for me, when they are able to see the proof, print it. The AFL hates that. They don’t want me to have the ability to get my arguments into the forum. They probably won’t like this interview.’’
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