The Tigers used to eat their own. Now they dine with the wealthy and influential

In the private dining room of Cecconi’s on Flinders Lane, supping over Fremantle octopus with salsa puttanesca, and pappardelle with beef and pork ragu, the moneyed and influential of Richmond sat and listened to the plan.

It was March 31, and quietly spoken president John O’Rourke, flanked by CEO Shane Dunne – an old face in a new job – laid out the vision of the new home on Punt Road – a vision that would keep the Tigers there permanently.

Flanking Dunne at the table were Adem Yze, the coach entrusted to nurture the teenagers hoped to be the nucleus of the next premiership dynasty, and Tim Livingstone, his football head and one of the leaders maintaining a connection with the most recent premiership era. Both spoke frankly of where they were on the field. The discussion was a look ahead to the next flag(s) and how they would get there, not basking in the glorious recent past.

The next night it was dinner again, this time at Spice Temple in Sydney’s CBD, with the harbourside-dwelling corporate Tigers. Italian one night, pan-Asian the next. East meets west, south comes north, Richmond meets Sydney. They used to eat their own at Tigerland; now they just eat well.

Neither of these dinners was so crass as to be a direct plea for money; the Tigers are more nuanced than that. Like the pairings of soave and amarone with the Venetian cuisine at Cecconi’s, Richmond have become more sophisticated. This was a “thank you dinner”, not a shakedown.

These were not so much inside-the-tent nights as inside the dining room for the most important people at Richmond to break bread … and canapes. Not all the invited could make it, but there was recognition of whom the important Tigers were.

There was already a trust in the club to build things the right way on the field. More importantly, the Tigers had developed trust to do things the right way off the field, which was significant when they were ostensibly there to lay out how and why they needed to help to make the biggest investment in the club’s history.

This one major infrastructure investment would ensure Richmond could stay at Punt Road for good. Of course, it comes at a price: the redevelopment, which has been delayed but is close to commencing, is estimated to cost $110 million, $30 million of which has been committed by federal and state governments. The Tigers have generated about $65 million, from those at the dinners and their balance sheet, but are still about $15 million short. The main football component will be constructed first and the rest of the project will come in stages as they continue to raise funds.

The movers and shakers

Many or most in the dining rooms had given significant amounts of money over the years, some seven-figure sums, some of them many times over. About $10 million of the redevelopment costs was covered by those at the dinners.

Those invited included Cliff Gale, the former owner of Lite ‘n’ Easy; Russell Telford, head of AG Coombs; and No.1 ticket-holder and fund manager Mark Nelson. All separately spoke to this masthead of how the culture at Richmond seems different to their impressions of other clubs.

Nelson has been quietly influential to Richmond in recent years, partly because his Point Piper home overlooking the famous harbour.

“Some people like to go on boards, some people like to be president, but others like to enjoy helping when they can, and I like to do that in any way I can, and the people at dinner like to help the club,” Nelson said.

“I am from Victoria but lived half my life in Sydney. I was approached about being an ambassador in Sydney and getting involved with my networks in Sydney and Melbourne, and getting interesting people involved in the club.

“There are a lot of expat Victorians in Sydney in business and we try to bring them all into the fold. Often help is not just financial but advice, and that advice can be reassurance for the club from people with expertise that you are not making a mistake.”

He mentioned Nick O’Kane, the ex-Macquarie Bank executive who earned $58 million there – more than the CEO – making him the highest-paid executive until he left last year.

“Nick O’Kane, for instance, is a massive Tiger. He is incredibly good at knowing how to structure deals and building arrangements. His advice is invaluable,” Nelson said.

“Greg Hunt was federal health minister and a big Richmond man. People like him are a great sounding board when talking with governments.”

Mark Fennessy was one of those long-term Sydney Tigers. The head of Fremantle Media and Shine Media started following NRL club the Sydney Roosters when he moved to Sydney because he wanted to be connected to a local club. When the Roosters found out, they asked him to join the board.

He loves the Roosters but, Nelson said, when they played in a final the same night as the Tigers, there was no serious debate where he would be.

Ian Darling is a documentary filmmaker and producer who made the Adam Goodes film The Last Quarter. He is a philanthropist and close with Swans chair Andrew Pridham, but he remains an avid and generous Tigers man. The Tigers have further enviable reach in the media through the amusing, overt fandom of Mick Molloy, the less overt but no less passionate Waleed Aly and the commentary of likeable former champion Matthew Richardson.

The best help some influential Richmond supporters provide is the reassurance to the executive and the board that the decisions the club are making are right.

The Mandie family has been a well-known contributor to Richmond for decades and despite the death of family scion David, the love affair continues through the unyielding yellow and black passion of his daughter, Evelyn Danos, the club’s No.1 female ticket-holder.

“I’m following on in my father’s footsteps. He was a Richmond lover from the age of five when his mother – not his father – took him to the MCG because they lived in Richmond, for a Melbourne-Richmond game and Richmond won by five points in 1923,” Danos said.

“Dad was never political, never on the board, always an advisor in the background so therefore he could give his support when asked for. Dad’s motto was always ‘it’s all about the club’. It’s not about me, it’s not about ego.”

Understated leadership

The understated style of O’Rourke’s presidency has been an important continuation of Richmond’s leadership. He has the same deferential style as his predecessor Peggy O’Neal, the successor of the effective Gary March, who stepped down in 2013.

Some on the board were angling for Malcolm Speed as an experienced sports administrator; others favoured Maurice O’Shannassy. But neither had the numbers and O’Neal was the pleasing alternative.

She made the role her own and the fact she hadn’t coveted it only enhanced her authority. Similarly, O’Rourke has a natural shyness slightly at odds with the profile of the position.

O’Rourke has been a significant financial contributor over years but every senior Richmond person spoken to by this masthead said that many Tigers people would be unaware of the degree of his generosity. He, like other donors, does not seek to leverage it, nor promote it.

No white knights

What happened in the 1980s and then in 2016 informs everything about where Richmond are now.

In the mid-’80s, Richmond had been financially devastated by a recruiting war with Collingwood (which nearly sent both clubs broke).

At the time, they had a dalliance with a white knight by the name of Alan Bond, who was lured to Richmond on the wave of his America’s Cup glory and his – at the time – impressive financial might.

Things went as well with the chubby fraudster as they did for many others the corporate criminal did business with.

In return for Bond’s promised largesse and acumen, the Tigers offered him the No.1 ticket-holder position that was held at the time by David Mandie.

Mandie was a highly influential football figure across the league, not just at Richmond, for he was chair of the VFL committee that ultimately resolved to establish a national competition run by a commission. He agreed to hand over the No.1 ticket-holder title if it was for the good of the Tigers.

That wasn’t enough for Bond.

Named president-elect in 1986, Bond presented a plan to have the Tigers play 11 home games in Brisbane where, coincidentally, his company owned brewers XXXX and Swan. To fund the $12 million for the half-relocation, Bond suggested a company be floated on the stock exchange. Tiger legends Jack Dyer and Kevin Bartlett strongly resisted the move and ran an opposition campaign, asking why a billionaire for whom $12 million was small change was suggesting unusual stock exchange capital-raise to get the club to move to a state where he had stronger financial interests.

The Brisbane move was shorter-lived than Bond’s one-year presidency – to say nothing of his later three-year jail term. But the flirtation with Bond created the realisation at Richmond to beware the lone saviour. The grassroots, tin-rattling survival campaign called Save Our Skins and led by Neville Crowe was born. It became entrenched in Richmond culture that they were responsible for their own destiny; not one saviour, but many.

Former Richmond CEO Brendon Gale recalls that about a decade ago, before Richmond’s pivotal 2017 season, a wealthy businessman arrived at the club offering to put in $2 million. It came with one proviso: sack the board.

The businessman had barely finished his coffee before being shown the door.

The avoidance of white knights has created an egalitarianism even among the wealthy contributors at the club.

“I have never felt like it is a pissing competition at Richmond. I would not know what other wallets have given and I don’t think others would either, it’s not something you ask about. I call them wallets because it is not one person’s money, it is the family’s,” Telford said.

“One person’s $100 is another person’s $10. It is also about advice, mentoring and networks. I have no doubt every Richmond person would say they have got a lot more out of Richmond than they have put in. Being part of the fabric is enjoyable.”

Ken Grenda, who owned Grenda’s bus lines until he sold it in 2012 and shared $15 million of the sale proceeds with his workforce, has been a significant long-term contributor to the Tigers. James Carnegie, son of business titan Sir Rod, is another who has been a heavy financial supporter of the club.

Cliff Gale couldn’t be there for the dinner in Melbourne, which had originally been scheduled for earlier in the month. The rescheduled dinner clashed with his slow drive to Adelaide for Gather Round.

“You help out where you can because you love the club, not because it’s about you wanting to have a say,” he said.

David Di Pilla, the CEO and managing director of HMC Capital asset managers, is a generous supporter. He recruited former Tigers player and CEO Brendon Gale onto the board of one of his companies, Home Co. He found value from Gale’s different perspective.

Thus did Richmond become a club where power and money buys access to the inner circle but not the capacity to decide who will be there, nor what that circle should do.

Canberra connections

Dan Tehan was trade minister in the Scott Morrison government but is one of the genuine Tigers in Canberra who would put party allegiance aside to discuss football with Catherine King, Infrastructure Minister in the Albanese government, and former Greens leader Richard Di Natale. Advice rather than overt influence has been important from all three.

The Tigers also have the bona fides of the successful Indigenous Korin Gamadji Institute at Richmond when they talk to government. Belinda Duarte, now on the Western Bulldogs board, had been critical in creating the institute in 2011, as had then CEO Steven Wright. Joe Hockey was the federal treasurer at the time and a strong Richmond supporter. He helped grease the wheels of government for the development.

The institute and the arrival of an AFLW team have been important developments in the past decade to draw the financial support of Telford and his family.

Ex-Fraser government minister Peter Nixon, a former AFL commissioner, was also invited to dinner at Cecconi’s, but being in his late 90s, he could not make it. Nixon, who was connected to the club through the 1980s and ’90s, has been influential at Punt Road over decades.

He remains a vice patron of the club, an ex-officio role that reaches back into the club’s history where significant donors or influential figures were given the title. Former Cardinal George Pell was one too. Previously a ruckman in the Tigers reserves, Pell had been a vice patron from 1997, until he was removed from the role in 2019.

Sir Andrew Grimwade, former CUB head Pat Stone, businessman and club benefactor Garry Krauss, Judge John O’Shea, Bill Durham and former chief magistrate John “Darcy” Dugan were all vice patrons, as were the late former premier Lindsay Thompson, the late ex-federal treasurer Phillip Lynch, former governor Sir Brian Murray and former president and past player Crowe.

The club’s board resolved in 2018 to no longer add vice patrons.

Building the premiership era

After the start of the Brendon Gale era as CEO in 2009, with March as president and Craig Cameron a forward-thinking head of football, they launched a next-stage plan to build the club. In 2011 they gathered noteworthy supporters, and laid out what they needed to do as a club as they formed the Fighting Tiger Fund.

It was a pitch for cash to wipe out the club’s $4.5 million debt, but it was also more than that. It warned of the doom spiral of being stuck in debt and the direct correlation between success on the field and the level of football spending.

Cameron explained why they had to be able to afford to pay all of the salary and soft caps despite being down the ladder. In business this might sound illogical – do not overpay for underperformance – but modern football was different. Cameron explained Richmond needed to front-end contracts to fill the salary cap and make cap space for when they improved and could attract free agents.

The business identities understood this pitch. It was capital-raising to invest in the future and there were going to be dividends.

The timing could not have been worse though, for it was the height of the global financial crisis. Despite that, they raised about $7 million. They then made a similar pitch to the broad base and raised another $500,000.

The return on investment was extremely lucrative, but came after perhaps the most significant decision in recent Richmond history when in 2016 they resisted the restless and after a review stuck with Damien Hardwick as coach. That year, they also saw off one of the most farcical and short-lived of board challenges from Focus On Football, a group that came wanting change but without any real plan.

The next year Richmond won the first of their three recent flags, made vast profits, built a membership base and built respect from their key supporters.

Richmond had delivered on what they said they would do. That buys a lot of goodwill with your people when you come back to them over dinner in Flinders Lane or Bligh St and pitch an investment, not a donation.

If nothing else, the mango and white chocolate mousse with lemon gel and chocolate crumble was excellent.

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