Wayne Carey blasts footy great who became famous for his TV ads after legends boycott celebration 'because they don't want to share the limelight with women's team'

Daily Mail​

26-06-2025

AFL legend Wayne Carey has urged North Melbourne great Sam Kekovich to put aside his complaints and attend the club's upcoming 1975 premiership celebrations.
The milestone event, which will commemorate the club's centenary and the Kangaroos ' premiership win in 1975, has been organised to take place next month, but several greats are so angry with the arrangements that they are giving it a miss.
Kangaroos premiership icons including Sam Kekovich and John Burns are boycotting the event because it is now also celebrating last year's AFLW premiers, according to reports.
Carey said he was also disappointed with the planned celebrations, but implored Kekovich to 'bite the bullet'.
'What I would say to Keka, because - and I love Keka - but I would say sometimes, whether you agree or disagree with certain things, sometimes you've got to bite the bullet,' Carey said on his You Cannot Be Serious podcast with Sam Newman.
'You mightn't agree with everything that is going on around you, but sometimes you do what's for the benefit of more than yourself. That's what I will be doing.
'Because there are other people, we're talking about a club that has gone for 100 years now. And there are many, many, many, many people that are involved in that footy club.'
Newman said the 1975 team certainly deserved their own function.
'To have him at a p**sy little stand-up function and finger food before a game, which will be s**thouse in the cold … if you couldn't put on what they do like the North Melbourne Breakfast and get 1000 people to the Crown Palladium, you'll have people come out of the woodwork,' Newman said.
'They'll fill their coffers up and they'll march all the stars out who are still alive and still with us.'
Journalist Caroline Wilson told Seven's The Agenda Setters program on Tuesday night that the story continues to anger her.
'A couple of them [the Kangaroos greats] have already named and shamed themselves, and one of them, of course, is Sam Kekovich, who I think has said he won't be going. I think John Burns has thrown his hat into the ring as well,' she said.
'But as I suspected, this is largely about gender and about the club's decision to not only celebrate their first AFL (then VFL) premiership, which happened 50 years ago, but also to celebrate their inaugural AFLW premiership in the same room, which happened last year.'
Wilson's take was backed up by another report on Fox Sports' AFL 360 program on Tuesday night.
'My understanding is a really big slice of that frustration surrounds the fact that they have to share that event with the AFLW premiers of last year,' panel member and journalist Jon Ralph said.
'I personally think it's ridiculous,' host Lauren Wood said.
'The reality of this is, it's actually not a premiership reunion. It's a centenary event that was the first VFL premiership that the club won, this was the first AFLW premiership that the club won.
'The club poured huge amounts of time, effort and money into developing this women's football program.
'This is a sign to the future of this football club, and the reality is that AFLW is now part of the football club.'
North Melbourne legend Malcolm Blight had a different take on why a few of his former teammates won't show up at the match against the Western Bulldogs.
'Well, I've heard plenty, of course,' Blight said on SEN.
'It was originally gazetted for Round 20 when they play Geelong, which was the first team they played against in 1925. That sounded lovely.
'But suddenly they've got a Thursday night game playing the Bulldogs, and they've changed everything.
'You know, we're all getting a bit older, and a lot of them had holidays booked.
'It went from a dinner to a (cocktail event) stand-up with pies, pasties and sausage rolls. Apparently, that's right.
'So a few of the lads just are not buying into it.'
Last week it was reported that players were snubbing the event because they would be standing up at the venue instead of sitting down at a gala dinner.
'About eight to 10 [players] are not going to turn up because it's a stand-up function at a bar,' 3AW's Ross Stevenson reported.
Top footy journalist Caroline Wilson confirmed the rumour on Channel Seven's The Agenda Setters program.
'I think this is a bit churlish,' said Wilson.
'They're also celebrating their first AFLW flag, so there's going to be a lot of people at this function.
'There isn't enough room for everyone to sit down. There will be people going in, people going out, stuff going on on the ground.