“It’s been a long farewell,” Andrew Demetriou mused this week as he handed the reins to the new AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan.
“I can’t keep going to lunches and having nice things said about me continuously.”
Demetriou has been in the CEO chair for 11 years, and after saying goodbye to staff on Thursday will be taking a long earned break.
Amassing “about 48 boxes” after packing up his desk, his work is done at the AFL and leaves a league in much better shape than when he started. Yes, his last few years were marred by a huge supplements scandal, but Demetriou’s tenure will be remembered for making the game extremely profitable and popular. He became the figurehead in creating a more tolerant league, giving opportunities to multicultural and indigenous players, and fostered a strong grassroots program.
Leaving the job this week, Demetriou wasn’t shy about pointing out what needs to be done in his absence.
In the climate of falling attendances and rising match-day costs for fans, he took aim at the Victorian Government after failing to invest in the MCG.
Reeling off the figures that other state governments have given to major stadium works, approximately $50 million to the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), the stadium’s operators, seems to have been not enough.
“Here in Melbourne, it generates billions of dollars of economic activity, we pay $6.5 million to the MCC and I can tell you that would go a long way to help our Victorian clubs if we weren’t paying it,” he said.
“Whoever wins the next election, step up and support the MCC because it would help our competition.”
That aside, he mentioned the highlight of his long goodbye has been a “really special” dinner on Tuesday night thrown by his successor Gillon McLachlan and the AFL Commission.
Eddie McGuire, Virgin Australia chief executive John Borghetti, AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and McLachlan all spoke at the dinner with good humour, Demetriou said.
Source: AAP
