Mick Malthouse lifts the lid on different Carlton culture, influence of former players, rich family

Herald Sun

27-06-2025

Coaching legend Mick Malthouse says Carlton has a 'fundamentally different' culture to any other club he led, where outspoken former players and rich family benefactors have 'way too much influence' for stability and success.
Pressure is ramping up on Michael Voss, but Malthouse – himself sacked by the Blues 10 years ago – believes the issues at Carlton go 'much deeper' than the coach.
'Carlton is influenced so much by outside money men, but if they are that concerned about the club they should jump on the board and do something about it and be accountable, instead of potting it from a distance,' Malthouse said.
'I mean, is there any coach who has survived more than five years in the last 20 years?
'I've been to six football clubs and when you walk into each one, you know it's different and has its own DNA, whether it be good, bad or indifferent. They see things differently.
'I've got a real soft spot for St Kilda but they just can't seem to get it together – one premiership ever. I go to West Coast, they were new, so you can set the agenda in many respects if you're strong enough early.
'Then I go to Collingwood who had roughly the same amount of premierships as Carlton, but (Eddie) McGuire never once mentioned the past.
'But he mentioned Olympic Park, where Melbourne were first cab off the rank if they wanted it but couldn't understand why you'd want a dog track for a football ground – but McGuire saw the future and we just spoke about where we wanted the place to be.
'Then I went to Carlton and they go, 'You know we've won 16 premierships' and I said, 'Well, I can only count one, because I only deal in AFL. 'No, we've won 16'.
'And then people who should have known better – the first luncheon, not the second, not the third, the first luncheon, a former player gets up and bags my selections for the side that I put out on the track for that first game – and you think, 'Wow – a former player has that sort of impact and then you meet with the board to deliver your football notes, and you think, 'My God, this is a really different place. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying it's wrong. It's just different.
'But you can't keep thinking the past is going to save you for the future, you've got to create the future and that's what I found so different between Collingwood and Carlton and it doesn't appear that much has changed.
'They've got a dual Brownlow medallist, one of the best full backs and so it's just a different football club that has some wonderful people and I enjoyed the players while I was there, but it just doesn't understand that sometimes things are going to take time and that time needs a lot of energy and that energy needs support and if anyone of those things breakdown then the premiership coming next year is not going to come for a long time.
'All cultures, at every football club, are different.
Malthouse broke Jock McHale's games coaching record of 714 games in 2015 before being dumped by the Blues weeks later.
'I could not have got two better people supporting me when I first arrived there. Stephen Kernahan is one of the most outstanding people I've ever met in football and Greg Swann, his history speaks for itself, but within 12 months, they were both telling me they have to go.
'So, stability is not exactly their strong point.
'There is just something fundamentally different there. The one thing you know as a coach is it's a carousel. You jump on and you're going to get flung off, you rarely step off it. That's just the nature of the game, but when you're on it, you'd like to think that you'd have the right support.
'Carlton is very much a club where the tail is wagging the dog.'
Asked how Carlton could fix the problem, Malthouse said: 'I don't know how you fix it.
'What they probably need is a McGuire-type to go in there and say, 'This is about us now'.
'The core thing is football, not business deals, not in 1995 we won the premiership or in 1981 and 1982.
'I didn't hear Kernahan talking like that and he was the president. He should have stayed. He was a ripping bloke. A ripping bloke, but it goes much deeper.
'They can't just sit back and get rid of Michael Voss and think that is going to save everything.'