Retired Sunrise host and Port Adelaide president David Koch has been tipped as one of many main candidates to take over from embattled AFL Commissioner Richard Goyder.
With Goyder additionally serving as chair at Qantas, and the beleaguered airline’s disaster having already claimed the scalp of CEO Alan Joyce, membership sources are enthusiastic about the road of succession.
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News Corp stories that a number of AFL golf equipment have named Koch as an “ideal candidate” for the position of AFL chair, having led Port Adelaide as president since 2012.
“He’s (Koch) a very decent bloke who you can talk to and most importantly he understands clubs,” one membership chief instructed News Corp.
“If the Qantas situation develops to the point where his (Goyder’s) position as chairman became untenable then naturally the focus would shift to his suitability to lead the AFL.”
While Koch couldn’t be contacted by News Corp, one other membership determine mentioned Goyder’s failed push in help of the Western Bulldogs’ Kylie Watson-Wheeler had finished him no favours.
Koch presently sits on the league’s nominations committee, and has handled the present vacancies on the AFL Commission which have gone unfilled for over two years.
Football legend Leigh Matthews withdrew his identify from consideration for the method final week, whereas former Docker Matt de Boer and Swans government Andrew Ireland stay within the body.
The feedback from membership chiefs aren’t the primary time Goyder has come below hearth this season, with a joke at Gather Round in Adelaide slammed as being in “poor taste” by veteran journalist Caroline Wilson.
“Richard Goyder, in that time honoured tradition of AFL bosses, tried to make a joke at the Gather Round launch about a key administrative failing,” Wilson mentioned on Footy Classified.
“In this case, his failure to appoint a successor for the man he reveres, Gillon McLachlan, and his cavalier treatment of the five other candidates for the top job.
“The problem was, it wasn’t funny.
“Waxing lyrical about the South Australian Premier, his good looks, and his amateur footy background, Goyder joked that Peter Malinauskas was not unlike Gillon McLachlan, and maybe he should be the next AFL CEO.
“Frankly, this was insulting.
“Certainly, to four of the five candidates who were in the room when he made that joke, all of whom have spent the best part of the last year devoting themselves for going for the job, and all of whom have had their brands tarnished by Richard Goyder’s performance.
“Not funny, Richard.”
The league’s Executive General Manager of Football Operations, Andrew Dillon, has since been introduced because the substitute for McLachlan as AFL CEO.
Dillon has labored in Australian soccer for 20 years and joined the league’s head workplace as Legal Counsel in 2000.
He was appointed General Manager – Legal and Business Affairs in July 2004, and on the finish of 2011, Dillon was appointed General Manager of National and International Development and General Counsel.
In 2013, he was appointed General Manager, Legal, Integrity and Compliance along with General Counsel.
He took on the position of Game Development in March 2017, which noticed him concerned in group and state soccer leagues, soccer amenities and infrastructure, along with the relationships with all AFL state our bodies.
Dillon acted as Executive General Manager of Football Operations from July 2021 and was formally appointed to that position along with his different duties in September that 12 months.
Dillon’s promotion has seen a shuffle off the AFL’s government workforce with Laura Kane promoted to a job as appearing normal supervisor of soccer, whereas Stephen Meade was appointed because the AFL’s normal counsel.
Source: www.news.com.au