Club Mgmt. Board of Directors as led by President Dave Barham

[Lore]

Tom Morris, 9 News via Fox Sports:

“A major board challenge is imminent at Essendon. In the wake of an off-season of turmoil, key powerbrokers - including at least one former player - are preparing a movement which would oust David Barham as president, and other directors too,” he said on Nine News.

“I’ve spoken to one of the key powerbrokers tonight, who says this is not coterie-driven, and it’s just a manner of when and not if the challenge takes place.

“There’s a view the club has been left rudderless and the Barham era has left a legacy of division, instability, player drainage and lost opportunity from this group of people.”

‘Rudderless’ Bombers facing more off-field chaos as club boss set to be challenged

‘Rudderless’ Bombers facing more off-field chaos as club boss set to be challenged

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[lenny2013]

Does anyone know the figure Dodoro received from the club for unfair dismissal?

 

[justlookingaround]

He was placed on leave on full pay because they’d promised Rosa he’d be gone by a certain date and he wasn’t.

They couldn’t find a “legal” way to make his role redundant, mainly because it wasn’t redundant.

They didn’t have grounds to sack him on documented failures to meet targets or gross malpractice etc.

They simply wanted him gone. He knew it, they knew it, so they were set against each other.

I suspect they could’ve just given him an enormous payout and he would’ve gone but that was obviously something they were looking to avoid.

He was placed on leave while they “worked it out” as they didn’t want him back at the club.

I think their strategy was to offer him other roles so unattractive to him that he wouldn’t take them and he would resign.

Dodoro’s view is that he had been made the face and the scapegoat for decades of failure at Essendon, and he wasn’t copping that. Hence the refusal to go quietly. Hence the Fair Work action.

A big part of the issue is that many senior football staff in clubs are on fixed-term contracts. Dodoro never was - he was a permanent member of staff.

If this is accurate he’s just an absolute selfish prick and there’s no other angle than he put his own ego above the club.
That being said surely there’s gotta be some sort of performance trigger for list managers going forward. Should be a cautionary tale for all clubs.

In regards to Roco, I generally like listening to him and don’t disagree with anything he said, but he’s also been mates with Barham for a long time going back to their time at channel 10 together, so he’s always gonna have a bias there.

 

[Lord Nicholson]

If this is accurate he’s just an absolute selfish prick and there’s no other angle than he put his own ego above the club.
That being said surely there’s gotta be some sort of performance trigger for list managers going forward. Should be a cautionary tale for all clubs.

In regards to Roco, I generally like listening to him and don’t disagree with anything he said, but he’s also been mates with Barham for a long time going back to their time at channel 10 together, so he’s always gonna have a bias there.

I'm pretty sure most football department roles are always fixed term contracts because, y'know, it's sport and why on earth would you put anyone on a permanent salary in that department?

As far as I'm aware the Dodoro situation is extremely unusual, as was his presence at match committee.

 

[DERO]

He was placed on leave on full pay because they’d promised Rosa he’d be gone by a certain date and he wasn’t.

They couldn’t find a “legal” way to make his role redundant, mainly because it wasn’t redundant.

They didn’t have grounds to sack him on documented failures to meet targets or gross malpractice etc.

They simply wanted him gone. He knew it, they knew it, so they were set against each other.

I suspect they could’ve just given him an enormous payout and he would’ve gone but that was obviously something they were looking to avoid.

He was placed on leave while they “worked it out” as they didn’t want him back at the club.

I think their strategy was to offer him other roles so unattractive to him that he wouldn’t take them and he would resign.

Dodoro’s view is that he had been made the face and the scapegoat for decades of failure at Essendon, and he wasn’t copping that. Hence the refusal to go quietly. Hence the Fair Work action.

A big part of the issue is that many senior football staff in clubs are on fixed-term contracts. Dodoro never was - he was a permanent member of staff.

Hence the dismissal protections claim. I couldn’t find any record of it with Fairwork. Once it is with the commission the directions should go on the public record after the hearing- they don’t seem to be there. I am questing whether it did go to the commission.

 

[ant555]

During the Flak of Jacket Dodo Head era that had me seeing red:

2006 - Travis Boak or Joel Selwood instead of Scott Gumbleton - we still had Lloyd & Lucas at this point for at least another 2 years (they ended up retiring end of 2009) - still baffles me to this day

2007 - David Myers - I wanted Cyril or Dangerfield who both had that X factor and could change a game in a quarter

2009 - Jake Melksham - as mentioned previously Lloyd and Lucas retired at the end of this season. Jack Gunston (whose Dad Ray was involved with Essendon for a number of years) should have been picked here

2010 - Dyson Heppell - no offence but we needed another key forward and we should have taken Tom Lynch here. Imagine Lynch, Gunston and Ryder/Hurley up forward. Frightening.

2011 - Eliott Kavanagh - after scraping into the finals and getting flogged by Carlton we needed pace and skill = Bradley Hill was who we needed here

2014 - Kyle Langford and Jayden Laverde. Again no offence. We lost again in the elimination final this time to the Roos by 12 points and our mids got spanked. Touk Miller played juniors in the EDFL and was Vic Metro captain and was right under our nose in our own backyard and we didn't take him!

2015 - Aaron Francis - should have taken one of the Vic Country "Twin Towers" in Harry McKay or Charlie Curnow

2016 - the year of the "top ups" saw us get pick 1 and take Andrew McGrath when the best pure footballer in the draft was fellow Ballarat schoolboy and the dairy farm lad from Allansford in "the Suitcase" Hugh McCluggage

Gumblton was an injury fail. He could play and would have been in the sweet spot when Lloyd and Lucas finished. No one was to know Gumby would injure his back.

Just on Cyril. He got very poor reviews as far as commitment to training and was considered a real go home factor. We had also just drafted Jetta and Davey.
Yes plenty did want him but he was considered a pretty big risk which is why he slipped back a bit.

 

[fairbump_playon]

Maybe another way to look at it is that this is exactly what Essendon should expect when it refuses to be honest about where it is at and what it is doing.

We're rebuilding at the end 2023 but shedding quality young players (who just finsihed finals campaigns for other clubs) to add free agents. That's a strange version of rebuilding.

We're also rebuilding at the end of 2024, having overcommitted to the list with new contracts, but wait until the eve of the 2025 season to announce an additional year for the coach who has presided over the shite produced in 2023 and 2024. This was Essendon's version of a public acknowledgement that it doesn't think it will be very good. There is no other reason to award that extension and, in fact, we shouldn't even assume that it's a sign of rebuilding. That is a projection, which is more likely than not to be accurate, but it's not a fact. It would be a fact if there was a public aknowledged plan which accepted that there was going to be pain in the next few years. What does it mean to bring Scott's tenure in line with the talent accumulation? What is the goal? How good will Essendon be in 2027? It's safe to say that none of Merrett, Draper and Ridley are convinved. Brendan Gale publicly stated the most ambitious goals and he was mocked for it.

After a season that looks like a rebuild, I say 'looks like' because you can't disentangle the number of debuts and games given to kids from the injury list, the captain says he wants out, along with 2 of the top 5 players at the club, and, instead of acknowledging where we're actually act, the club would prefer to pretened that Merrett is untradeable (with 2 years on a contract spanning a period of time the club wont even say it expects to be good). So now were a rebuilding club holding an unwilling of signficant trade value to a contract so that we can finish, what, 14th instead of 15th or 16th? That's not rebuilding either.

Barham and the board will get my understanding when they start being open and honest. But Barham would prefer to get in shouting matches with veteran players...

Let’s just see if Essendon trades Merrett

The “untradeable” talk is most likely just positioning. I’d rather they get the best value for Merrett even if that means not being fully transparent with the fans right now.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

He was placed on leave on full pay because they’d promised Rosa he’d be gone by a certain date and he wasn’t.

They couldn’t find a “legal” way to make his role redundant, mainly because it wasn’t redundant.

They didn’t have grounds to sack him on documented failures to meet targets or gross malpractice etc.

They simply wanted him gone. He knew it, they knew it, so they were set against each other.

I suspect they could’ve just given him an enormous payout and he would’ve gone but that was obviously something they were looking to avoid.

He was placed on leave while they “worked it out” as they didn’t want him back at the club.

I think their strategy was to offer him other roles so unattractive to him that he wouldn’t take them and he would resign.

Dodoro’s view is that he had been made the face and the scapegoat for decades of failure at Essendon, and he wasn’t copping that. Hence the refusal to go quietly. Hence the Fair Work action.

A big part of the issue is that many senior football staff in clubs are on fixed-term contracts. Dodoro never was - he was a permanent member of staff.

re the fixed term contracts, I wonder if that's changing now. You're no longer allowed to have on-going fixies, with only one extension allowed and in total no longer than 2 years all up. There are some exceptions though. Maybe club staff qualify as performing a distinct, specialist task or something. Or maybe they are just over the high income threshold, though I'd be surprised in most cases

 

[Lance Uppercut]

Hence the dismissal protections claim. I couldn’t find any record of it with Fairwork. Once it is with the commission the directions should go on the public record after the hearing- they don’t seem to be there. I am questing whether it did go to the commission.

yep, arbitration occurs before it goes to the commission

 

[faible]

Whoever it first was that agreed to make the Dodo a permanent staff member has an inordinately large amount of shit****ery to answer for.

Looks like it was done at the end of 2017, so presumably a Xavier Campbell decision.

 

[DapperDon]

Welsh prez

Barham had some stuff ups when he started, but genuinely got us moving in the right direction. This is/was never going to be an easy build and I just hope Welsh is on the same path.

 

[BrunoV]

Let’s just see if Essendon trades Merrett

The “untradeable” talk is most likely just positioning. I’d rather they get the best value for Merrett even if that means not being fully transparent with the fans right now.

I doubt our posturing has any bearing on what Hawthorn is prepared to pay.

Having said that, I am assuming that they are being rational and that the base for a deal is their pick 8 + a young player we could use (e.g. Hustwaite or McKenzie). Maybe I've gone too early on that assumption because now there seems to be noises about Hawthorn being into Petracca. But it's got 3 years of first round picks it can trade.

I don't know what serious argument we can make to say he is worth a gigantic deal.

- He's our captain but how many more times is he going to try to leave? There was smoke last season. I suspect we've been protected from the reality that the industry has seen Zach as open for discussion (if you're the right club). Why did Hawthorn target Merrett? It's one of those things hiding in plain sight, isn't it? There are really good pre-agents who are much easier to move, there is Petracca who already tried to leave Melbourne. It was a lot of effort to target a contracted captain. There is a reason Merrett was targeted and it doesn't help us.

- He's got 2 years left on his deal. We're not doing anything of consequence in that 2 years. That is assured for next season. Are we really going to bet on convincing him over the course of the next 12 months that he has a shot at success with Essendon? We have virtually no leverage in 12 months time, particularly if the captaincy is taken from him (as it must be if we are to retain any dignity).

- He's our best player. So what? He's the difference between finishing 14th or 16th/17th. How does that really help?

Merrett is a really good player and that is why he's still worth a first round pick and a player who could play 200 games for Essendon (which I beleive Hustwaite would do - he'd be out Ned Long). We've already gone through this saga of refusing to deal with what is staring us in the face. It cost us significanly with Daniher. It's time to act like we've learned something for a change.

 

[MPMonkeys]

I doubt our posturing has any bearing on what Hawthorn is prepared to pay.

Having said that, I am assuming that they are being rational and that the base for a deal is their pick 8 + a young player we could use (e.g. Hustwaite or McKenzie). Maybe I've gone too early on that assumption because now there seems to be noises about Hawthorn being into Petracca. But it's got 3 years of first round picks it can trade.

I don't know what serious argument we can make to say he is worth a gigantic deal.

- He's our captain but how many more times is he going to try to leave? There was smoke last season. I suspect we've been protected from the reality that the industry has seen Zach as open for discussion (if you're the right club). Why did Hawthorn target Merrett? It's one of those things hiding in plain sight, isn't it? There are really good pre-agents who are much easier to move, there is Petracca who already tried to leave Melbourne. It was a lot of effort to target a contracted captain. There is a reason Merrett was targeted and it doesn't help us.

- He's got 2 years left on his deal. We're not doing anything of consequence in that 2 years. That is assured for next season. Are we really going to bet on convincing him over the course of the next 12 months that he has a shot at success with Essendon? We have virtually no leverage in 12 months time, particularly if the captaincy is taken from him (as it must be if we are to retain any dignity).

- He's our best player. So what? He's the difference between finishing 14th or 16th/17th. How does that really help?

Merrett is a really good player and that is why he's still worth a first round pick and a player who could play 200 games for Essendon (which I beleive Hustwaite would do - he'd be out Ned Long). We've already gone through this saga of refusing to deal with what is staring us in the face. It cost us significanly with Daniher. It's time to act like we've learned something for a change.

The serious argument is quite simple - he is a contracted player.

 

[thebigboy]

Barham gone - Welsh now president. Confirmed to a letter to members.

 

[VelvetSledge]

Well that happened quickly

 

[brutus76]

Dear Members,

After nearly three and a half years serving as your President, I have decided to step down from my role and hand over to Vice President Andrew Welsh

Andrew Welsh

Age

42

Ht

188cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.4

4star

K

9.7

4star

HB

6.7

4star

M

4.6

4star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

9.6

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

2.2

2star

M

4.0

4star

T

3.6

5star

.

My love for the Essendon Football Club is second only to the love I have for my family. In every decision and every action I have taken, my guiding principle has always been what is in the best interests of the Club. This is another. It is time for a new President. It is a voluntary role that requires someone with the time, drive and energy to take us forward.

I have given my all over the past three and a half years and tackled every challenge with everything that I have. I took my responsibility to fight for and defend our Club, our players, coaches and administrators extremely seriously. I’m proud of what we have achieved in transforming the Club and making the hard decisions to set it up for long-term, sustained success. I have no doubt we are now on the right track, and I leave excited about the future.

When I became President in 2022, I invited Andrew Welsh

Andrew Welsh

Age

42

Ht

188cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.4

4star

K

9.7

4star

HB

6.7

4star

M

4.6

4star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

9.6

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

2.2

2star

M

4.0

4star

T

3.6

5star

to join the board and take on the role of Director of Football Governance. He has developed close working relationships with our coach Brad Scott and CEO Craig Vozzo and been heavily involved in developing our football program.

Last year, Andrew took on a wider leadership role as Vice President. Andrew, the Board and I have been working collaboratively to put a succession plan in place for some time, and I am delighted that Andrew is now able to take on the role, and he will take over responsibility from today. I have been thinking about this decision for a while, and feel the timing is right.

I convened a meeting of the Board this morning where I informed them of this decision. I will now take steps to fully exit the board in the coming weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

Since becoming President, I have repeatedly said that sustained, long-term success relies on unity, stability and alignment and this transition to Andrew Welsh

Andrew Welsh

Age

42

Ht

188cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.4

4star

K

9.7

4star

HB

6.7

4star

M

4.6

4star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

9.6

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

2.2

2star

M

4.0

4star

T

3.6

5star

ensures that maintained.

Andrew will be an outstanding President, and it has been a privilege to work with him. He is driven and will bring fresh energy to the role, an energy we need to continue to build and develop the Club and achieve on-field success. As we all loved him as a player, Andrew’s uncompromising but compassionate approach, football knowledge and strategic thinking have been brilliant to watch and are great assets to the Club.

I have served on the Board since the start of 2016. I would like to thank all the members who elected me and placed their trust in me. It has been an enormous honour, and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to contribute to the Club. I have met amazing people, both inside and outside the Club.

I have enormous faith in both Brad Scott and Craig Vozzo. They are the future and will lead us to success. They are talented, committed professionals who have outstanding values, and it has been a pleasure to work with them. They both put the Club first always.

To the people who work at the Club, including the players, coaches, administration team and volunteers, I have loved getting to know you all and have the utmost respect for you.

To the Board, you are an amazing group of dedicated volunteers who only want the best for the Club. Your work ethic is elite, and I value the friendships made.

To all our members, I look forward to rejoining you in the crowd and yelling my support for our team. I won’t miss going to the footy in a suit and will reacquaint myself with a pie and a beer in the outer. Thank you for all the support and I consider myself lucky to be a Bomber supporter amongst all of you.

Finally, to my wife Tash, and my daughters, Mia and Sophie, thank you for all the support and help over the past few years. I could not have done this job without you. As a family, we have enjoyed some great times.

Go Bombers.
David Barham



THANKS DAVE FOR YOUR SERVICE IN WHAT WAS A TROUBLED TIME

 

[Lore]

Club Mgmt. - Board of Directors as led by President Andrew Welsh

yay I started a thread Welsh Prez Barham had some stuff ups when he started, but genuinely got us moving in the right direction. This is/was never going to be an easy build and I just hope Welsh is on the same path.

www.bigfooty.com