Outgoing Sydney chairman Richard Colless has lamented the bad blood from some AFL club bosses towards the Swans, saying the lack of solidarity was galling.
The league’s longest-serving current club chairman or president has announced he will leave the post next February, ending his 20-year tenure.
Colless, who also was West Coast’s president in their inaugural 1987 season, has always staunchly defended the Swans and never shied away from sparring with rival clubs.
Several Melbourne clubs have openly questioned the Sydney cost of living allowance for Swans players and wondered aloud how the club was able to recruit Adelaide key forward Kurt Tippett.
“I just get bitterly disappointed with clubs who come to meetings and profess solidarity, equalisation and then the next day are preaching the complete opposite,” he said.
“I find that particularly galling.
“To use the press the way some of the Melbourne clubs have used it – I don’t think it’s the most courageous act.
“There’s no doubt in recent times, some of the bigger Melbourne clubs have gotten together and mounted a campaign that I thought was totally against the spirit of a meeting we’d had seemingly only a few days before.
“I get disappointed with people using the media brazenly, recklessly and I get frustrated the media often don’t check facts … cost of living being an example.”
But for all the inter-club arguments, Colless will leave the post a content and proud man.
He said the good times had far outweighed the bad.
Colless did not want to comment on the club’s much-respected “Bloods” culture, but is proud of the Swans’ status in the league.
“Worst things could happen to you than people wanting to be like you,” he said.
Colless oversaw Sydney’s rise from a basket case in the early 90s to losing the 1996 grand final and then the 2005 premiership, which broke their 72-year drought.
The Swans have since managed to defy the league’s boom and bust cycle, missing the finals only once since 2003 and beating Hawthorn in last September’s epic grand final.
Paul Roos, who coached the 2005 premiership team, said Colless had not received enough recognition for his efforts.
“No question – particularly when there were so many problems early and the fact it’s such a competitive market,” Roos said.
“When you look back at when he took over, to see where the club is now compared to when he started and the rough times. It’s just a fantastic effort and he’s led from the front.
“He should take enormous pride and he’s very, very much responsible for where the club is at the moment.”
Colless said his successor would come from the current board.
“We don’t want change agents – we want people to make what we do better,” he said.
Colless is relaxed with the decision to leave the post and said the time had come.
“I don’t want to be part of the furniture and I’d started to become a bit unnerved with being constantly referred to as the longest-serving chairman in the AFL,” he said.
