AFL executive salaries are ‘indefensible’: Former commissioner takes aim at head office

Colin Carter messaged Sonja Hood after she received a copy of his new book as a diplomatic spoiler alert, warning the North Melbourne president that she might not enjoy his published declaration that the club’s refusal to relocate to the Gold Coast or Tasmania was “regrettable” and a missed opportunity for both the Kangaroos and the competition.

Hood accepted Carter’s message with good grace while pointing out she strongly disagreed. Carter also asserts that a Victorian club relocation should remain on the AFL’s agenda and that despite 25 great years from the mid-1970s, North has been a “mediocre performer” for most of its history, condemning itself to an ongoing national search for a secondary market.

Recently departed AFL chairman Richard Goyder has not yet been sent a publisher’s copy of Carter’s book, but he, too, should be warned. Carter questions both the commission’s governance and its impact during Goyder’s tenure. He asks whether awarding the lucrative grand final rights to the MCG until 2059 – a further blow to the fixture’s fairness – was a management proposal waived through Goyder’s commission.

And he states the game’s governors “went too far” when they agreed with Goyder’s proposal to keep AFL executive salaries secret. Clearly referring to several years under the stewardship of Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan, Carter told this masthead that it was “indefensible” that an AFL CEO earned more than $3 million in a year when the best paid player earned less than $1 million.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon has read the book and was contacted for comment.

The 16-year AFL commissioner and decade-long Geelong president has written several books and key strategic documents that shaped the modern game; notably the independent AFL Commission in the early 1990s, the rebuilding of the Great Southern Stand and the return of VFL members to the MCG.

Bill Kelty describes Carter as one of the “fathers of the modern AFL”. This makes his bird’s-eye view of the game’s recent history and his not-always-subtle suggestions for future improvement fascinating reading. His latest book, Ideas and Reflections: From Four Years Inside the AFL Bubble, is released next week. Truthfully, the title downplays some of Carter’s more hard-hitting observations.

They include:

• The AFL’s silence on gambling, given its readiness to promote other key social issues, is deafening;
• Carlton was lucky not to be stripped of its 1995 premiership with the commission divided in 2002 over the club’s salary cap cheating penalties, which Carter asserts were ultimately relatively lenient;
• The AFL’s executive bonus scheme rewards executives for taking “actions that are clearly counter to the interests of some of the clubs”;
• The AFL should not have made a Hobart stadium roof a condition of Tasmania’s licence;
• The relocation of a Victorian team should still be on the AFL’s agenda, with 18 teams the maximum number for the competition;
• The AFL should withdraw its guarantee of financial support to clubs; and,
• AFLW player payment levels are a massive burden for the competition to carry.

Carter’s view that the Hobart Stadium shouldn’t have a roof comes in one of the book’s last chapters, entitled: What I don’t understand.

Carter is also bemused by the game’s refusal to experiment with a twilight grand final. He questions whether Goyder – who publicly endorsed the prospect after the COVID-era grand finals – was overruled by Gillon McLachlan’s executive.

And he cautions that the free-to-air blank on Saturdays could come at a long-term cost, pointing out again the danger of an executive bonus scheme that rewards “increases in revenues [which] must surely attract the minds of executives particularly where any costs … are only felt in the long term”.

Carter told this masthead: “We shouldn’t have to bribe our executives. When I was chairman of Seek we abolished short-term incentives”.

Carter said that as a commissioner, he approached former AFL chairman Ron Evans shortly before his death regarding the growth of executive salaries at head office, which have increased at a rate disproportionate with those of players.

As a club president, Carter agreed with Goyder’s proposal to prevent the publication of AFL salaries. Now he says the football public had a right to know how the AFL reached its remuneration of executive wages. “Public companies are required to explain their wage structures so why shouldn’t we?” Carter asked.

He said an acceptable wage for an AFL chief executive should be around $1.5 million, which would align the role with that of a university vice-chancellor. Demetriou, in his last full year in the top job ending in June 2014, earned a reported $3.8 million which included some significant long-term bonuses.

“There is a sense of vocation about the job and this is a public institution, a community institution built upon volunteers. I prefer to benchmark our CEO in alignment with the Melbourne University CEO rather than the guy running Goldman Sachs.”

Carter’s Tasmanian observations are all the more intriguing given the AFL tasked him in 2021 with assessing the case for that state’s AFL licence. He said North Melbourne was not part of the brief but “hovered around the edges,” given the fascinating revelation from Carter that the AFL asked him to include a few words in the final report “that something like relocation might be considered.” Carter said he complied, never believing North Melbourne, the obvious contender, would agree.

Of the roof requirement he says now: “I think it’s wrong. Since when has football required a roof? If I was Ken Hinkley the last thing I would want is to play teams at a stadium that’s nice and comfortable. And it’s adding a big sum of money to build a stadium in a state that’s broke.”

Carter’s revelation about one other rare episode that divided the commission during his tenure is also intriguing. It was in selecting Wayne Jackson’s successor as AFL chief. The three final candidates were Demetriou, West Australian Commission chairman Neale Fong and Geelong CEO Brian Cook. The vote was split three-all in the commission of six, so chairman Evans used an extra casting vote to select Demetriou. Although Carter doesn’t reveal the other three vote-candidate, it is understood to have been Fong.

Ideas And Reflections comes at a time when the new AFL chairman, Craig Drummond – Carter’s successor at Geelong – has stepped into the role and immediately called for a governance overhaul. And the book is released in a week when Carter’s beloved Cats are being investigated by a King’s Counsel over their failure to lodge documents relating to concussion victim Jake Kolodjashnij’s questionable agreement with the club to assume personal liability to keep playing.

Carter keeps his own counsel regarding Geelong’s current issue, but his published recollections have already been keenly sought by clubs across the competition. One Port Adelaide board member requested 10 copies of the new book.

Drummond’s early move to make regular visits to clubs would meet with Carter’s approval given his assertion that head office did not always treat its clubs with the respect they deserved, nor allocate the time to understand their issues. He even cites a recent example of an AFL executive telling a club president pushing his case to “f— off”.

He highlights the lost opportunity of the AFL’s foray into South Africa and the failure of his 15-year project urging the AFL to change its view of its birth year. This proposal, controversial on several levels largely due to reshaping the premiership ladder, was finally killed off by the commission this year in one of Goyder’s final acts as chairman.

His thoughts on AFLW will raise some hackles but his point in the book – that the AFL pays its women players in total more than cricket’s WBBL, soccer’s A-league Women, the Matildas, rugby league’s NRLW and Super Netball combined – goes to his conclusion that, although the attendances stack up well compared with other sports, the competition expanded far too quickly. He also takes issue with the large grounds the women generally play on.

He calls for an elevated competition at the end of the regular AFLW season to showcase the best of the best in a six-team competition, pointing out to The Age: “You’re more likely to attract crowds to a game of a higher standard than the equivalent of watching a game between St Kevin’s and Melbourne Grammar.”

But Carter admits he put his club first at the time the competition expanded too quickly. “I was complicit in this growth,” he says, adding that the competition’s size is “problematic.”

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