Miller gone if Casey loses Tiger control
By Caroline Wilson
The Age
December 2, 2004
Although Greg Miller had not quite spelt out the fact to Terry Wallace before taking his extraordinary stand two days ago, the fact is that he will leave Tigerland should Clinton Casey lose the increasingly dirty battle for control of the Richmond Football Club.
Miller has agreed that his position in the football department would prove untenable under a Charles Macek-led board. The truth is that whatever the result, key positions at the football club would prove untenable either way.
Chief executive Steven Wright's position, for a start, seems impossible to contemplate. How on earth could he over-rule Miller on player contracts and football department budgets, let alone negotiate Miller's salary when Miller is serving on the Richmond board? Already Wright's authority has been undermined given that he instructed Miller to stay out of the board battle.
Wallace, for his part, addressed his new team yesterday and instructed the players to stay away from politics and concentrate on football. Hopefully his edict will prove more successful than Wright's. So torn is the football club that Wallace can only hope the December 22 election will decide a clear winner.
Either way, the coach, who will tonight welcome 50 former players to the club to begin a footballer-mentoring program, will not be attending the annual meeting. Although the move was not deliberate - a family holiday had been booked and could not be changed - this is probably not such a bad thing.
Potential power issues also loom for Paul Armstrong, the club's new football operations manager, whom, we were led to believe, would be taking care of player contracts and administrative football issues while Miller was to run the recruiting department in the Wallace game plan.
Armstrong is a long-time lieutenant of Wallace and clearly Wallace has enjoyed Armstrong's organisational style in the past. But surely Armstrong would be compromised with Miller as football director. In the words of Gerard Healy on 3AW last night, Miller now looms as a Graeme Richmond-style powerbroker at a football club he joined only two years ago.
Miller says it was his decision to run for the board, a decision that has staggered Miller fans and astute industry observers. His timing was impeccable in that it grabbed the headlines away from the release of Macek's election material, endorsed as it was by eight former players including Francis Bourke and Dick Clay. Not to mention the financially damning annual report, posted on the club's website on Tuesday.
There is no reason not to believe him despite the fact Casey has struggled to recruit a high-profile former player to join his ticket. Miller offered his services to the board back in March and did the same at the Kangaroos.
The question no one can answer, however, is why Miller believes that only Casey can continue the momentum both men claim has begun in recent months. Nor can Miller say why the club could not succeed under Macek, who recently returned from overseas but has now hit the campaign trail.
The only valid criticism of the opposing ticket is that four potential directors have been there before, albeit none as president. Miller said he had been distressed by the nasty tactics employed by the Macek ticket.
The Macek ticket, though, would say the tactics have been dirty in their direction, also.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2004/12/01/1101577552924.html
