[ad_1]
The Bombers are on the hunt for a new CEO, coach and multiple board members after a brutal day where more Ben Rutten supporters exited the club.
Just days after Rutten’s sacking, footy boss Josh Mahoney and list boss Adrian Dodoro remain precariously placed following the departure of CEO Xavier Campbell.
Former president Paul Brasher and Simon Madden have quit the board, while vice-president Peter Allan and board member Sean Wellman will depart later this year.
Fox Footy’s Gerard Whateley likened Wednesday’s overhaul to the infamous Game of Thrones Red Wedding episode.
Watch every blockbuster AFL match this weekend Live & Ad-Break Free In-Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
“Do you know the reference to the ‘Red Wedding’,” Whateley asked AFL360 co-host Mark Robinson.
“That was the wipe out.
“Today was the red and black wedding.”
Whateley said the politics off field “had to be sorted” before the club could move on in a new direction.
But Robinson said the massive exits was not as bad as first feared.
“There’s factions on the board and they had a vote and David Barham’s side won and it was a vote on the interim report that said Ben Rutten is staying. So it was a vote on Ben Rutten. People said keep him, Dave Barham said ‘he’s got to go’, so if you lose, you can’t patch it back up,” he explained.
“I actually think Xavier Campbell, Simon Madden, and Sean Wellman has announced he’s leaving … I think that’s the honourable thing to do.
“I don’t think it’s a massive crisis as all.
“I think this was expected. It’s happened and this gives Dave Barham and his new direction for the club clean air to say: ‘Righto, let’s have an election’.
“Essendon people sitting it at home tonight watching it all unfold today – it’s a purge but it’s not a crisis. This was going to happen and it’s happened. It’s part of Dave Barham saying: ‘We’re going to grab this club and go forward’.”
Given the almost half the board has now left, Whateley and Robinson agreed it was time to cut down the number regardless moving forward.
But whether Mahoney or Dodoro survive for 2023 remains unknown.
“I’m not sure if both can survive. I think Adrian Dodoro will survive, he’s got supporters on the board from what I know,” Robinson said.
“At stages through the year people say, ‘Gee Adrian Dodoro has done a great job’ and when they start playing poorly they say, ‘we’ve got to get rid of Adrian Dodoro’.
“Josh Mahoney is the most curious figure at Essendon today. He and Xavier Campbell completed the internal report – they say Ben Rutten is staying.
“There was a referendum on that report and everyone’s gone except the person who authored that report.
“If Josh Mahoney can work closely with Dave Barham, then he can keep his job. But we can’t have the head of football and the president opposed to each other – we just can’t.”
Robinson said there were two candidates that could work well at the Bombers to replace Campbell as CEO.
“They either go a fresh, youngish chief executive, or they try and poach a senior AFL executive from another club – and that to me would be Greg Swann from the Lions.
“He’s built Collingwood, built Carlton.
“Xavier Campbell argued this – the Essendon football club was good, the football program was bad. They might need a football CEO which Greg Swann certainly is.
“Simon Matthews worked at Essendon for 10 years – he may be an up and coming CEO in the industry.
“I would think when they put it up for tender, he’d certainly be putting his hand up for the job.”
[ad_2]
Source link
