Brendon Gale will have a full plate when he starts work as Devils CEO: Here’s what’s on top of his To-Do List
Incoming Tasmanian Devils CEO Brendon Gale will have a mountain of work on his desk for his first day in the role in February. Here are the priorities he must tackle to ensure the newest AFL club is a success.
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As the Tasmania Football Club’s inaugural chief executive, Brendon Gale’s to-do list will be as long as his arm when the rubber hits the road in February.
The 244-game, 209-goal former Richmond ruckman/forward has spent his “retirement years” working as a Melbourne lawyer, CEO of the AFL Players’ Association (2005 to 2009), and the past 16 years at Punt Road.
He was the architect of Richmond’s triple premiership era as well as the Tigers becoming the first AFL club to 100,000 members.
The Devils are hoping he will bring the Midas touch to Tasmania.
Here are Gale’s priorities when he joins the Tasmania Football Club.
FIND A COACH
In his head, Gale will already have a hit-list of experienced coaches he will target.
Everything else is pure speculation – so let’s speculate.
Nathan Buckley’s name keeps cropping up as a coach who could bring “character, capability, cache and connectivity” to the role. Bucks has form. He laid the foundation at Collingwood that eventually came to fruition under Craig McCrae in the form of a premiership in 2023.
Geelong’s premiership mastermind Chris Scott, as one of the most experience coaches and smartest minds in the game, could be another coaching as well as West Coast’s 2019 premiership coach Adam Simpson.
With Chris Fagan potentially as Tasmania’s head of football, that could bring Alastair Clarkson into the picture.
He has coached more games on Tasmanian soil than anyone else and Clarko’s record as four-time premiership coach at Hawthorn, and current coach of North Melbourne, coming off contract at the end of 2027, leaves his window open to take on the Devils.
Adam Kingsley would have been a good fit, having been a premiership assistant-coach under Damien Hardwick at Richmond, but is contracted until the end of 2028 and off-limits unless Greater Western Sydney agreed to let him go.
Another former Tigers premiership assistant-coach and stand-in senior coach, Andrew McQualter, recently won the West Coast job until the end of 2027. The success of the Eagles over that time could be his audition for the Devils.
Collingwood’s premiership coach Craig McRae could be a dark horse. He knows Gale well, having been a Tigers assistant-coach for all three premierships (2017, 2019 and 2020), and comes off contract with the Pies at the end of 2026. That would give him the whole of 2027 to lay the foundations for a Tasmanian team.
GENERAL MANANGER OF FOOTBALL
This is where Tasmania will shine.
Before the search even starts, Tassie has four prime, home-grown candidates.
Chris Fagan: By his own admission “Fages” will be “too old” to coach by then, making him the No. 1 suspect in the hunt for Tasmania’s head of football.
He held the role at Hawthorn for nine years and four premierships. He was appointed coach at Brisbane in 2017 and took the Lions from second-last to the grand final in 2023 and AFL premiership in 2024. That kind of know-how doesn’t grow on trees.
Brendon Bolton was head of football Collingwood until recently when he moved to St Kilda as an assistant-coach. As a former assistant at Hawthorn, head coach at Carlton, assistant-coach at Collingwood, then head of the Pies’ footy department, “Bolts” also an experienced candidate for the Tassie role.
David Noble: Had the top job at Brisbane, where he appointed Fagan as head coach, a decision vindicated when the Lions won this year’s premiership. “Nobes” went on to fulfil his own AFL coaching ambitions at North Melbourne but it was an ill-fated move to the coach-killing Kangaroos.
Noble has since switched to motorsport where he is now team boss at V8 supercars powerhouse Dick Johnson Racing.
Graham Wright: Has made football his career after being a premiership player at Collingwood. “Wrighty” was a recruiting genius before becoming head of football at Hawthorn and then Collingwood, presiding when both clubs won premierships.
He is now deputy-CEO of Carlton and ready to take over at the Blues when Brian Cook, the longest-serving club CEO in AFL history, retires. The call of his home state might be enough to get him to cross the Strait.
AFLW DEBUT
The Devils AFLW team is set to debut in 2026, so the clock is ticking.
That means they need to appoint a head of the women’s program and a coach next year, and put a list together ASAP.
Then there is the infrastructure and other personnel needed to operate an AFLW team, as well as somewhere for the women to train, given the High Performance Centre, which will have twin ovals, has not even been started.
On top of that, the women need a guernsey designed for them, because the “Map” state representative jumper from the club launch in March won’t cut it as a league strip.
TASMANIA’S AFL FUNDING
A critical part of Gale’s job will be to negotiate Tasmania’s piece of the AFL pie – what funding it gets and when that starts.
AFL’s distribution of “variable funding” is given to clubs based on their financial needs to help balance out the competition.
As a new club, the Devils will have limited revenue streams.
On that basis, clubs with the least income get the biggest chunks of pie – I can hear Tassie fans groaning as they utter names that have haunted them for the past decade, Gold Coast Suns and Greater Western Sydney, which have taken the lion’s share of AFL funding every year since inception.
Last year, they each received $25m, and Tasmania can expect similar levels of funding, if not more, depending on how Gale’s negotiations go.
On the flip side, his former club Richmond received $11m, the same as Collingwood, Hawthorn and West Coast, which all had strong income from other revenue streams.
AFL DRAFT CONCESSIONS
Gale will be at the forefront of the battle for premium draft picks.
Just like the Gold Coast and Giants, Tasmania will have a suite of first-round picks ahead of their AFL inception.
Based on past experience, Tasmania could get picks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11 in the AFL Draft in November 2027.
It is believed the Devils will also be given an additional $1.5m or more in “sign-on bonuses” in an effort to help them lure some big fish as well as having access to an uncontracted player from each of the other clubs.
Gale and his list-management team must then play their hot hand of picks in a game of “draft poker” trading selections to secure established players to bolster on-field leadership and experience.
That would help avoid going down the same path as GCS and GWS, which had a vast array of young talent but were consistently hammered in their initial years.
MACQUARIE POINT STADIUM
The 23,000 seat, roofed stadium on Hobart’s waterfront will be the centrepiece of the Tasmanian team.
When finished in 2029, it will be Devils’ home ground and given the support the team has already gathered five years out from its AFL debut, it will be easier to get a ticket to a grand final between Collingwood and Richmond than a seat in the “Mac Arena”.
That’s why the TFC’s input into the stadium’s design and facilities is critical. The club must work closely with the state government and AFL to ensure they get what they want.
Remember, a lot hinges on the stadium build, because Gill McLachlan’s words “No Stadium, No Team” are still ringing in the ears of local footy faithful.
HIGH PERFORMANCE CENTRE
Another government-run project, which explains why a final site for that facility has even not been settled a year on from the announcement it would go on the former Rosny golf course, about 5km from Macquarie Point Stadium.
The $70m high-performance facility will be the TFC’s administration centre and training base for the AFL and AFLW teams, and the Devils’ Coates Talent League Boys and Girls under-18 programs.
This is another project Gale needs to be closely involved in to ensure the Devils get the training base they deserve.
FIND A MAJOR SPONSOR
The club’s marketing specialist will lead this one but Gale will be key to appointing that person as well as being knee-deep in the search.
Every major company that seeks national exposure is a candidate.
Here’s a stand-out potential contender out of left-field – The Walt Disney Company.
Disney owns the rights to Taz Devil, the cartoon character loosely based on Tasmania’s indigenous marsupial.
Given the Tasmanian AFL team is called the Devils, the synergy would be perfect.
KEY APPOINTMENTS
Apart from the obvious, Gale and TFC chairman Grant O’Brien’s priorities include the appointment of key people to the key jobs that make a footy club tick.
They include a chief operating officer, chief financial officer, chief of strategy and growth, chief of brand and marketing, head of Tasmania’s AFLW program and an AFLW coach.
TASMANIA DEVILS MEMBERSHIPS
Footy fans are champing at the bit for the release of full Devils memberships.
The club already has an incredible 200,000 members just eight months after it was officially launch.
At $10 a throw, some have said that is a fake membership base, so when the fully fledged memberships come out, fans will put their money where their collective mouth is and give a true indication of the extent of the Devils’ support.
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