Carlton Blues annual general meeting; members have their say

He quit as president late last month and resigned from the board, worn down by a social media scandal that involved a lewd picture being posted from his X account. Even as he vacated his post, Sayers maintained he did not post the naked image. He was cleared by an AFL investigation of any wrongdoing. Carlton fans are growing impatient at a lack of premiership success. Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images But the Blues will now, according to Priestley, replace him on the board with, ahem, the next Luke Sayers. It is part of their skills-based approach, Priestley said. They would be seeking like for like. “We need to replace the relevant skills,” he explained.

It is fair to say those skills won’t involve any social media expertise. Loading Priestley said the recruiting process was being run by the club’s independent nominations’ committee, which he sits on as president alongside two independent panel members, Andrew Mansour and John Davies, who have expertise in corporate governance. They also happen to be Blues supporters. That led to heckling from the floor. The committee was anything but independent, members claimed. They labelled the process “undemocratic” and accused the board of “communism” – a confusing accusation considering the point they were trying to make was that not all members are treated equal. Priestley was also asked why the board had not asked Sayers to resign or step down during a parliamentary inquiry into PricewaterhouseCoopers – the firm Sayers led as CEO.

“I think that is an easy question to answer,” the new Carlton president said. “As a board, we had conversations with Luke in terms of his summation of the facts, and there was nothing, from our perspective, to ask him to step down. “There was a lot of press speculation, but nothing that came through those meetings where we were in a position where we thought the club needed to ask him to step down.” Carlton CEO Brian Cook, left, and former president Luke Sayers, centre, welcome Graham Wright to the club. Credit: AAP For his part, Sayers had continually insisted that he did not know of the misconduct – disclosing government secrets to PwC clients – when it started. He said he acted on it as soon as he found out. With Sayers no longer at Carlton and Cook to make way for Wright at the end of this year, the Blues are bringing in new people to face the same old scrutiny: When is the club going to win a flag?

“Nothing happens here,” one member complained about the lack of premiership success, now stretching to a 30-year drought. From a business perspective, Carlton are flying. The club has just posted a $3 million profit, it is aiming to hit 112,000 members this year after signing up 106,000 in 2024, it had the largest home crowd average of 58,000 last year and Cook was proud to announce they no longer needed financial assistance from the AFL outside the normal base distribution. On top of that, the Blues raised $430,000 for their Carlton Respects initiative, and are building a new imaging centre at Ikon Park - a facility that will not only benefit players but create a new non-football revenue source alongside Carlton College of Sport, Carlton In Business and its poker machines.

Loading The club also re-elected Patty Kinnersly and Greg Williams unopposed to the board. But none of that equals a premiership. None of that will placate the members, a couple who lost control of their emotions at the AGM. One resorted to a stand-up shouting match when told to calm down by a fellow member – maybe he forgot he was at a meeting and not in the outer – while another employed Peter Dutton-type politics to make his point. He complained that 40 minutes had elapsed at the AGM, and while he had heard about “respect, Aboriginal flags and Welcome to Country”, the word “premiership” had not been uttered once.

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