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In the near 50 years I’ve been covering sport, if Sydney Swans chairman Richard Colless isn’t the best sporting administrator I’ve dealt with, he is certainly in a podium finish with Tim Caldwell and Charles Blunt.
Caldwell was chairman of the Australian Cricket Board from 1972-1975, taking over from Sir Donald Bradman, and Blunt president of the Australian Rugby Union from 1969-1971.
Outstanding, all three.
Colless (66), who hails from Perth, has been in the Swans’ chair for 19 years, making him the longest-serving AFL chairman/president still in office.
Now the AFL and AFL Players’ Association are combining to investigate the Buddy Franklin offer of $10 million over nine years to switch from the current Premiers, Hawthorn, to the previous Premiers, Sydney, starting next season.
Which, in effect, is investigating Richard Colless.
Good luck, men.
For more than three decades Colless has been a leading light in the financial services industry in Australia, and the United Kingdom.
He has forgotten more about finance than most will ever know.
It’s absurd anyone would think he hasn’t crossed the ‘t’s and dotted the ‘i’s on the Franklin contract. It would be as squeaky clean as Colless the man and the Swans as a club, arguably one of the very best run clubs in any sport.
So why are Victorians, especially of the AFL variety, getting their togas in a massive knot over the Swans transfer?
Hardly a peep out of anyone Victorian when it was ‘obvious’ Franklin was heading for GWS, in the knowledge the champion would make as much impression on the wooden spoon side’s performance as a pimple on an elephant’s backside.
But team Franklin up with Kurt Tippett at Sydney, and that’s a vastly different story.
‘We must stop that’, seems to be the early running.
But should they be worried? Richard Colless and the Swans have made a big call by throwing their lot, and their belief, in with a loose cannon like Buddy Franklin.
Only time will tell, but to me the combination of Franklin and the Swans is like chalk and cheese.
It’s dickhead territory, which the Swans, as a club, have avoided like the plague.
The deal will be legit, but the bigger question is: will it work out for the Swans?