Melbourne have revealed it cost them $1.45 million to clear the decks and install the Paul Roos regime at the AFL club.
Unveiling a new major sponsor as the club welcomed back its full list for day one of pre-season training, chief executive Peter Jackson said the club’s “management restructure” included a $1 million grant and $450,000 from the AFL in matched club fundraising.
“That all went into 2013 to restructuring the club, we haven’t got any change out of that, it all went in paying out contracts and undertaking a management restructure,” Jackson said.
“The reality is, we haven’t got anything from them for 2014, it was a one-off grant as we’re back on our own again.”
The Demons say they’ve closed the chapter on one of their worst seasons, and could look forward to better financial health alongside an improved on-field performance.
“2013’s been pretty awful, we know about that… we think we’ve got a good base going forward, something this club certainly didn’t have at the start of last year,” Jackson said.
“We’ll be back in the black in my view in 2014.”
Senior coach Mark Neeld was sacked midway through the season, while stand-in coach Neil Craig also departed for Essendon at the end of a campaign where the Demons won just two matches.
Automotive Holdings Group (AHG) was unveiled as the club’s new major partner and will don the front and back of the Demons’ guernseys until 2016.
Details of the partnership were not disclosed but Jackson said the partnership was “substantial for the Melbourne football club” but not as big as some AFL heavyweights’ commercial partnerships.
“We’ve undergone a hell of a lot of change… and it’s a great sign of support by AHG that they would come and support the Melbourne Football Club and believe in the journey that we are going on,” Jackson said.
The key part of that change, new coach Roos, said he was unlikely to be making any more additions to the coaching staff this late in the club’s 2014 preparation.
Roos’ tenure is linked to nurturing a new long-term coach for the club, who would move into the top job after two or three seasons.
Roos denied it was disappointing that the club had yet to find a senior assistant coach, pointing to the recent St Kilda appointment as a sign that filling vacancies wasn’t easy.
“It was something we talked about but it was never going to be the absolute priority,” Roos said.
“We’ve got plenty of time to do that, what we’ve found in the process… when you look at (Alan) Richardson, coaches are really reluctant to put their names up now because if they get knocked back a couple of times they’re seen to be a bit scarred.”
