Former Richmond president Gary March on SEN this arvo with Andy Maher and Bob Murphy.
Listen here: https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=746303-----------------------------------------------------
FORMER TIGERS PRESIDENT TALKS "BALLSY" DECISION TO APPOINT BRENDON GALEBY SEN
20 October 2020Richmond will head into its third Grand Final in four years on Saturday night, the culmination of a bold rebuild by the club that started at the end of 2009.
The Tigers were in the process of serious change, needing to find a new senior coach and a new CEO.
Coach Terry Wallace resigned during the 2009 season and CEO Steven Wright stepped down to deal with health issues.
Former Richmond president Gary March was tasked with filling both roles and said his decision to target then-AFL Players’ Association CEO Brendon Gale was one he did without telling the club’s board.
“Appointing Brendon was a pretty ballsy move. I rang Brendon, he was at the AFLPA at the time, the (Richmond) board didn’t even know that I was calling him,” March told SEN’s Bob and Andy.
“I invited him out for lunch and Brendon thought I was bringing him out to ask him who he thought we should appoint as senior coach of the Richmond Football Club.
“And I asked him at the lunch whether he would consider coming back to the club as the CEO.
“To be fair to Brendon, he took a leap of faith from the club at the time. We were in a pretty poor state.
“But we also took a leap of faith with Brendon. He’d only been the CEO of the AFLPA, and all due respects to the AFLPA, at the time it wasn’t a big organisation and he had very little commercial experience, but what we knew about Brendon is we were going to get a person that our people could believe in and he was a good leader of people.
“We just needed to surround him with the right people that had strengths that he didn’t have and he’s evolved as a fantastic leader over the last seven years.”
March is confident that Gale could one day run the whole competition.
“One day no doubt he would be (a great AFL CEO), but I think the guy in the chair at the moment is doing an outstanding job,” he said.
“What Gillon has shown in the last couple of years and in particular this year, I’ve just got huge admiration for what he has been able to do this year for the AFL.”
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/10/20/former-tigers-president-talks-ballsy-decision-to-appoint-brendon-gale/
