Craig Kelly - cause for concern ?

[Jezza]

He arrived as our new CEO in early 2023, and there's been too many stories that are causing concern for mine.

Graham Wright leaves because the two clash and are unable to work together. There's been a lot of murmurings of what went down between them, but there's no denying that Wright was pivotal to our resurgence in 2022/23 so he's a big loss no matter how people spin it.

Wright's potential replacement could be Adelaide list manager, Justin Reid who worked for Kelly at Elite Sports Properties for 14 years prior to joining the Crows. This makes me wonder whether we're opting for people loyal to Kelly rather than finding the best person for the job.

The accusations against him from a former employee. The club seems confident that it can defend the accusations which is reassuring, but nonetheless it will cost us time and money to resolve the matter. It's not a good look in a PR sense no matter what the actual truth is.

Now we have Brendon Bolton departing, which comes off the back of internal conflicts with Leppitsch in the football department.

The club needs to get its act together off-field and in the football department/board level to give Fly and the players the best chance of further success.

[RudeBoy]

To be honest, I'm actually relieved that Bolton has departed. I've nothing against him, but I never really warmed to him. He apparently clashed with Justin Leppitsch during the year and I was not looking forward to on-going tension amongst our coaching staff festering in 2025. Hopefully, the air has now been cleared, and I hope Leppitsch stays with us, as he seems to have a bright and positive personality, which is needed in a football department, which can be a pressure cooker environment.

[SLORT]

The thing I find worrying is how media shy he's become. Can't remember the last time I saw him out and about talking up our club.

[Mr Miyagi]

Yeah part of the reason Leppa changed to list manager. The issue with Bolts put him off coaching a bit. Hope he returns to it though. Never really a fan of Bolts, I think we can do better.

[Culprit]

Can we roll all these Craig Kelly Threads into one Thread? Asking for Ned.

[Bucks5]

No more 'roaming bolts", Craig has done a good thing.

[Presti35]

Don't forget we've brought home Matthew Boyd after his stint at Freo.

[K]

Jezza, worth looking again at Caro's Sep. 7 article:

‘We make mistakes all the time, just like football teams do’: Inside the Magpies’ season that didn’t go according to plan

Caroline Wilson
September 7, 2024 — 5.30am

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/we- ... 5k846.html

'The last angry conversation between Kelly and Wright took place about six weeks ago when the latter was travelling through Italy, but the premiership season was occasionally punctuated with them as well.
...

New chief executive Kelly had bigger plans for Collingwood and its footballers than his predecessor Mark Anderson. There was one big argument between Kelly and Wright in the middle of 2023 when both men had their say in a fiery exchange. The entrepreneurial Kelly accused Wright of repeatedly knocking back his suggestions and Wright stuck to his guns in the belief that football was his domain.

“I’ve had disagreements with Wrighty for 20 years,” said Kelly this week. “I regularly disagree with him, and he does with me.” Of his current relationship with Wright, Kelly said: “We haven’t spoken for a while.”
...

Wright, who was contacted this week but chose not to comment, has told friends he was disappointed in the manner in which his tenure ended at the club but has acknowledged it would have proved too difficult to return due to the falling out with Kelly, whom he has credited with making some good decisions. He also remains on good terms with McRae and has backed McRae’s denials that the players over-celebrated after last year’s premiership.
...

Kelly denied that running a football club presented challenges he had not faced when running his successful marketing, athlete management, and promotional agency, TLA. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “Exactly the same. Except at a football club it becomes a media story. And the week in, week out demands for success are more intense.”

Kelly also took issue with the suggestion that president Jeff Browne was leading the restructure of the football operation after a year of upheaval and some disharmony. “He’s not,” said Kelly. “We are.”

Every senior administrator at the club contacted this week denied that Kelly’s increasingly heavy involvement in football in 2024 had been part of the problem. And yet it was outgoing president Browne who stepped in to negotiate with Wright and ultimately navigate his departure, and Browne who is overseeing the search for his replacement and who has contacted candidates such as Port Adelaide’s Chris Davies.

Wright’s overseas trip caused Kelly and the board to reanalyse their football department soft cap and overall budget and prioritise a bigger allocation into list management and recruiting. This was one key reason Wright is not returning. And yet the club remains adamant it can recruit another highly regarded football boss, despite prioritising soft-cap spending elsewhere.

Browne, who will depart the presidency next year and make way for director Barry Carp, strongly backed Kelly after he was accused by a former employee in July of using racially inappropriate language and conduct. Kelly refused to discuss those allegations this week but his colleagues and Browne have insisted that the potential scandal and potentially forthcoming court case was not the reason for the board’s hands-on intervention in football. And yet for all of his famously brash, gregarious confidence, the accusations must have rattled Kelly, as did an incorrect recent report that he had been sacked.
...

Friction between Bolton and Leppitsch predates their current football roles, with the pair known to clash semi-regularly in the coaches box.

Away from football, Collingwood’s commercial and membership boss Ian Paterson has quit to join News Corp and been replaced by Chris Larkins from St Kilda. And Kelly has lured his TLA legal boss Susan Harper to the Magpies to take on an executive role in compliance.
...

Browne, Kelly, McRae, Leppitsch and co. have the clout and the cash, and significantly more time in this off-season, to restructure the football operation. Judging by some of the internal disputes, the off-field bloodletting is not yet complete as the departing president Browne and his team work to create Collingwood in Geelong’s image.

For now, though, the collateral damage has been the friendship forged over more than three decades between Craig Kelly and Graham Wright.'

[Mr Miyagi]

I’d be pissed off with Ned if he kept calling me while I was on holiday in Italy too. Instant block

[shawthing]

Wrighty is a legend. Ned Kelly is frankly an entrepreneurial bore. The cheek of him saying running a football team is exactly what he did as a player manager tells me he knows little about running a successful football club. Graham Wright had the runs on the board at Hawthorn and then proved it with managing to get Fly and a premiership within two years.

Frankly I fear we'll regret appointing Kelly very much so. I hope I'm wrong. The next President is going to have to pull rank if Ned thinks he can hijack our club like his namesake robbed banks.

[Presti35]

I’d be pissed off with Ned if he kept calling me while I was on holiday in Italy too. Instant block

Poor guy just wants to see the Statue of David and see is the pecker is to scale. Which reminds me, NicksBB should erect its own Statue of @David

[Rd10.1998_11.1#36]

I hope Leppitsch stays with us, as he seems to have a bright and positive personality

That’s one way of putting it

Another is that he has a history of clashing with colleagues

[SLORT]

^I think he's the Hardy to McRae's Laurel...you ain't getting the magic of one without the other.

[David]

I’d be pissed off with Ned if he kept calling me while I was on holiday in Italy too. Instant block

Poor guy just wants to see the Statue of David and see is the pecker is to scale. Which reminds me, NicksBB should erect its own Statue of @David

Thankfully for all I think the original artist is no longer with us.

I'm in rare agreement with shawthing here – have never gotten great vibes from Kelly, and if it came down to him vs Wright then it very much seems like the wrong person left.

Even just those allegations from a few months ago ... unless all of them were made up from whole cloth, they certainly don't provide a great reflection on his character or professionalism.

[RudeBoy]

While from the outside looking in I, along with most Nicksters it seems, are concerned we backed the wrong horse by backing Kelly over Wright, the truth is, none of us know the ins and outs of what transpired. For all we know, Wright may have always coveted the CEO position and was destined to have an ego clash with whoever got the position after Anderson's departure. None of us know. However, now that Wright has departed I'm prepared to give Kelly the chance to prove his worth. So far, under his leadership, he empowered Leppitsch to deliver us Perryman and the absolute gun in Houston. So far so good.