Demetriou to step down

[holdencaulfield]

Should have gone years ago

[David]

Financially, the game is in good shape. Unfortunately, in most other respects, I think his legacy will be at best mixed. Consider the following 'achievements' of Demetriou's reign:

1) Failure to handle the priority pick issue quickly enough when every man and his dog could see that it was being misused. When it finally emerged that at least one team had tanked, the response was woefully inept (as it was with most big scandals—see Essendon and Adelaide).

2) While Demetriou had little idea how to handle club corruption, misbehaving players were much easier to whack. Under Demetriou's reign, the culture of self-righteous extra-judicial punishment grew to ridiculous extremes. The nadir, in my view, was the disgraceful treatment of Ben Cousins, whose non-performance-enhancing drug addiction was treated with a charge of "bringing the game into disrepute"—a sad and ironic comment on the topsy-turvy priorities of the league's representatives.

3) Continuous meddling with the game's rules that evolved from necessary tinkering to radical, seemingly annual restructuring. The tiny rules committee were given free reign to respond in a knee-jerk fashion to whatever blight-of-the-moment was supposedly in urgent need of fixing lest it ruin the game as a spectacle (even if nobody thought to point it out until a few weeks before).

4) The Gold Coast and GWS expansions, which may or may not pay off but remain deservedly controversial. GWS in particular has a long way to go to prove itself a defensible creation.

5) While it's not clear how much blame Demetriou deserves for this (stadium management undoubtedly played a big role), the experience of attending a football match has changed significantly under his stewardship. Continuous music, countdown clocks and fake crowd noise all seem designed with a TV audience in mind (or, more to the point, a football-going audience raised on TV viewing). Whatever role Demetriou played, he certainly did nothing to stop it.

6) Last, but not least, basically being an arrogant buffoon who couldn't handle criticism, and consistently acting like an oligarch trying to keep the peasants at bay. A little humility and thoughtfulness wouldn't have gone astray.

As CEO, Demetriou helped the AFL become what it is today: an organisation totally obsessed with money and PR, well-meaning but clumsy in regards to the game itself, and downright contemptuous when it comes to fans and players. I hope that his successor will learn from some of these mistakes and get back to the AFL's central purpose: perpetuating the sport of Australian Rules football.

[Woods Of Ypres]

His legacy is that he has over-complicated the the game of football.

[Didaksgoal]

The Demons didn't tank........um er um errr, but we'll fine them anyway....................um er umm errrrrrrrrrrrrr....................Dork!

Go the Pies

[swoop42]

His legacy?

A rather large arse imprint on his office chair.

[Piesnchess]

Not much legacy, was asleep at the wheel for ages, stuffed up tanking and the whole essendoper business. No doubt the fat little prick will buy himself a greek island and retire there on his largesse massive income.

[Jezza]

Very happy that Andrew Demetriou will no longer be the chief executive of the AFL after this year. This man has done more damage to the game than anyone else I can think of in the past decade! It's amazing that he's lasted this long to be honest and I thought he should have given his position away a few years ago.

The handling of the Essendon saga has been nothing short of a disgrace. The constant rules changes and interpretations of the game has made the game worse and over the years the commercialisation (Americanisation) of the game of Australian Rules has increasingly got worse and it's made me become a little disillusioned about the direction the game is currently heading towards. Also the introduction of the Gold Coast and GWS franchises was not necessary as 16 teams was a sufficient amount of teams already for the AFL.

Anyway we can only hope that the next man in the role of chief executive does a better job in the game and appeals more to the common football supporter who's become a little frustrated by the game in general! I have a bad feeling that someone like Gillon McLachlan will take over the role and that nothing will change but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Dr Pie]

[Proud Pies]

An interesting read on Demetriou and the AFL from Crikey

[think positive]

Bloody good article, thanks

[Doc63]

[David]

Great article, PP. Thanks for posting. Astounded that so many otherwise insightful posters are willing to praise Demetriou's supposed achievements (though, granted, he probably wasn't much worse than his predecessors).