Paul McNamee to skip town while team’s in strife

 

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By Best Clubman, 6 Apr 2008 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

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At first glance, the Melbourne Football Club’s appointment of a new chief executive who’s decided to take a mid-season junket at a time when the club is in crisis seems like a most inappropriate appointment.

New Dees boss Paul McNamee, a man whose qualifications and experience in sports administration are beyond reproach, has made the startling announcement that he will be taking two weeks off in the middle of the season to play in the legends doubles tournament at Wimbledon and to recruit players to the one Australian sporting event with less public interest and lower crowds than a Melbourne match; the Hopman Cup.

McNamee, who begins work at the club on Monday, will have been in his role as chief executive for only three months when he takes off for London to play in the veteran’s doubles tournament given his previous incarnation as a former doubles champion of the event.

McNamee’s determination to take a two week leave of duty is understandable given Melbourne’s current plight and reliable projections that the Demons will have an 0-11 record and a percentage of -11% at that stage of the season.

But his public announcement of his absence is the worst attempt at taking a sickie since Best Clubman told Best Clubman Ed. that we needed three days off to recover from a bad bout of Legionnaire’s disease due to a nasty neck sprain we received from the long flap at the back on our legionnaire’s cap (all is forgiven; the Year 10 work experience girl we employed for two hours after school on Tuesday’s in your absence was a more than able replacement – Best Clubman Ed.).

However, according to Melbourne president Paul Gardner, the club has no issue with McNamee’s two week break and was fully aware of it when they made the decision to employ him. “We’re not worried about that. He was up-front about it and we were happy to accommodate him,” Gardner said yesterday. “Often when you recruit someone they come with a deal that might be, say, an already-organised family holiday in X or Y. We don’t think a week from now until the end of the year is unreasonable.”

While their modern approach to employee recruitment, management and retention is admirable, Gardner’s admission that a club in crisis was prepared to take onboard a chief executive who’s going AWOL at a time when the club desperately needs a leader, makes the club sound as desperate and willing to take whoever they could get to a degree not previously seen since Fiona in accounts foolishly let Best Clubman share her bed after the Christmas party in 2005.

In reality, McNamee’s absence is not a major problem considering his trip coincides with the club’s week off during the round 14 split round and he will be back in time for their clash the following week against Brisbane and McNamee’s duties as Hopman Cup director come in January when the club shuts down for its Christmas break.

A more pressing issue for the club at present would seem to be the playing group’s decision to bring forward their Christmas break to the start of the season so far.

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