Former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett believes AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou should lose his job over his handling of the Essendon supplements saga.
The former Victorian Premier also says Demetriou’s deputy Gillon McLachlan is not the right man to replace him.
And he believes Bombers coach James Hird, senior assistant Mark Thompson and football operations general manager Danny Corcoran have failed their duty of care to their players and should also go.
Kennett has criticised Demetriou for having AFL representatives sit in on Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) interviews during the soon-to-be finalised joint investigation into the Bombers’ supplement program, saying it would have intimidated witnesses.
And he says it’s wrong for Demetriou and McLachlan to be in the United States this week consulting American sporting bodies on equalisation, when ASADA is expected to hand down its findings next week.
“The code right now is going through the worst time it’s gone through in a long time and the CEO and his deputy both think so little of it they travel overseas,” Kennett told Melbourne’s 3AW radio on Monday.
Also on the long-planned visit are three club presidents, three club chief executives and AFL Players’ Association chief executive Matt Finnis.
Kennett said while Demetriou and McLachlan had done many things well, they had conducted themselves with a degree of hubris.
He said the AFL heavyweights seemed more interested in protecting themselves than the code.
“It’s their jobs, it’s their reputations, it’s their entitlements that are taking front row to the interests of the code,” Kennett said.
“The AFL commission needs to find a different personality to take the AFL forward.”
Demetriou defended his presence on the US trip.
“I’m sure there’ll be headlines that we’re out of the country and that some disaster’s happened, but look, we’ve got capable people here,” he told the AFL website at Melbourne Airport.
“I’m sure if anything does happen, we’ll be across it.
“It’s important that we do this trip. You’ve got to plan these things well in advance.”
Hird also maintained on Monday he was definitely the right man to continue leading the Bombers and said it was a “travesty” that chairman David Evans resigned on Saturday night due to the impact of the saga.
