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Sydney Morning Herald
29-05-2025
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
How a club legend, a meat billionaire and a former premier led the Crows out of the darkness
Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. This is our series on the football world's movers and shakers. See all 9 stories. As Mark Ricciuto picked up the phone to call Neil Balme in the winter of 2020, little did the former Crows captain know that he was speaking with the figure who would become his replacement as the most senior football person on the board of the Adelaide Football Club. Back then, Ricciuto was wrestling with the struggles of the bottom club in the league, with a rookie coach in Matthew Nicks, a thin playing list and a psyche bruised by the 2017 grand final defeat, the infamous 2018 pre-season camp and all that flowed from it. Balme, then ensconced at Richmond, seemed the obvious choice for Ricciuto as what he called a 'godfather of football' for the Crows, steeped in both South Australian football (as former coach of Norwood and Woodville West Torrens) and more contemporary successes as a football department overseer for Collingwood, Geelong and the Tigers. Those initial conversations with Ricciuto planted a seed for Balme to think more about Adelaide, even as health problems precluded him from accepting a full-time job. The Crows were also searching for their next chairman. Rob Chapman, who had held the role since 2009, was aware that the club needed a fresh figurehead after the camp scandal. His first succession plan had been waylaid by the death of his well-liked deputy Bob Foord in December 2017, leaving Chapman to turn to someone who'd often been on the opposite side of the negotiating table: SANFL chairman and former Liberal premier John Olsen. Olsen spent as much as eight weeks mulling it over. He was conscious of how the Crows carried so much expectation within the state, dating back to his time as premier between 1996 and 2001. Tellingly, Olsen had experienced the rush of optimism wrought by the club's only flags, in 1997 and 1998. 'The first flag was won just after we'd lost the [Formula 1] grand prix to Melbourne, we'd had a drought, the State Bank had fallen over, the psyche of the state was flat,' he says. 'But that win just lifted people. I can't describe to you just how impactful that was in the community.' Olsen made two swift decisions on his arrival. He parted ways with the club's previous chief executive Andrew Fagan, who had a background in rugby union, and replaced him with Tim Silvers, Hawthorn's longtime COO. The other call was to push for the introduction of term limits on the board, to allow for continuous regeneration of the club's leadership and to head-off accusations of a 'boys' club' at Adelaide. Olsen wanted a 10-year limit, but ultimately agreed to a compromise of 12. That meant Ricciuto's time would be up at the end of this year. He was the club's football director from 2014 after becoming disenchanted by the Crows' decision-making in the years after his playing retirement in 2007. Ricciuto has been central to every major football appointment since: sacking Brenton Sanderson, then hiring senior coaches Phil Walsh, Don Pyke and Nicks, football department heads Brett Burton and Adam Kelly, and this year's addition of Brisbane Lions coaching stalwart Murray Davis to assist Nicks. He has since been a driver of the current rebuilding path. But over the same decade, Ricciuto has also been a high-profile lightning rod for criticism of the club. In his morning radio gig with Triple M, the Brownlow medallist did not always respond to these barbs with measured words, and fired a few of his own at other clubs. And while there was robust debate around the board table about the extent to which the turkeys would vote for Thanksgiving, a fresh approach to Balme, alongside former Crows utility and St Kilda list manager James Gallagher, brought reassurance that the club's football expertise would be enhanced rather than diminished in Ricciuto's wake. Loading Importantly, Balme and Gallagher are running their eyes over the program of head coach Nicks, who is under contract until 2026, and will decide what else can be done to help the players make the most of their 'premiership window'. Balme, of course, has relationships with the likes of Damien Hardwick and Chris Scott, should the Crows decide they need to headhunt a premiership coach as the last piece of the puzzle. But as multiple other clubs will attest, Balme primarily brings reassurance and a seasoned eye. 'Some of the meetings I've seen where they've had an issue they needed to fix and the way they've done that and engaged the players to come up with an answer and buy-in has been very, very good,' Balme says. 'They've got a very logical feel for how things are going, not 'if we don't play well you're a useless player, you're a useless coach'. And that's more important if you're a club like Adelaide where everyone has an opinion about you.' Ricciuto is revered in Adelaide. He is in business with pub baron and former Crows director Peter Hurley, whom he counts alongside Chapman as his two greatest mentors. Until 2023, Ricciuto owned the iconic Alma Tavern in Norwood alongside Hurley and Crows champions Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker. 'I've always said to CEOs or chairs that I'll stay as long as I'm wanted and as long as they think I'm the best person for the job, that's all I'm interested in,' Ricciuto says. 'If term limits are going to help the football club then I'll do what needs to be done, but personally they're not the sorts of things I'm concerned about.' But now that the club has put a limit on his tenure, he is relieved that Balme was eventually able to answer the call. So is Olsen. 'Mark's hard to replace in the context of time commitment, his absolute passion for the club,' Olsen says. 'But in bringing Neil and James in, you bring in not only Neil's footy experience and a whole raft of intellectual property he brings to the board table, but also James in a different generation that brings in a list management skill set. 'You ensure that as far as football strategy is concerned you have people well-versed and experienced being able to have an informed debate at board level where decisions are made. You could argue there's two replacing one to get that, but the simple fact is term limits give you the guardrails to ensure you put in place measures for continuity, not disruption.' Adelaide's $2.27 billion benefactor If Ricciuto has been the Crows' highest profile powerbroker over the past decade, its wealthiest has arisen from the most successful business in South Australia over the same period. Darren Thomas and his father Chris are the principals of the meat company Thomas Foods International, which posted revenue of $3.29 billion last year to make it Australia's 14th largest business by that measure. Formed in 1988, the company built up over the same period in which the Crows did. In recent years Darren Thomas has effectively taken over from club patron and Clipsal impresario Rob Gerard as the club's most important benefactor. It's no coincidence that Thomas was one of a select few invited to help turn the first sod for the club's new base at Thebarton Oval. Thomas played for South Adelaide and Sturt, before turning full-time to the family business, of which he is now the managing director. He counts inaugural Crows Peter McIntyre, Mark Bickley and Nigel Smart among his friends from South Adelaide, and also reels off Ricciuto, Simon Goodwin, Tony Modra and Matthew Powell as close mates. He was with Goodwin when Melbourne won the 2021 flag in Perth, and attended the Melbourne coach's wedding earlier this year. He also has links to AFL House royalty, as a friend of Gillon McLachlan and one of his predecessors, Wayne Jackson. 'We still buy a lot of Wayne's cattle,' Thomas says. 'And we provide the meat for the annual AFL lunch at Australia House in London.' It is not uncommon for Thomas to mentor Crows players. He was introduced to James Podsiadly in 2014, becoming friends and then business partners around the creation of the AFL Max indoor facility that numerous other Crows figures also invested in. And he is a regular coffee partner of Adelaide's precision goalkicker Darcy Fogarty. 'You're just there to listen and help them think through some things,' he says. 'Going back to the early days when we were nothing and I knew nothing, I had some people who were impactful on me, who happened to come through football and my school, Westminster, some of the teachers there. So I've never forgotten those things and I like to give back. 'Darce being a country boy and knowing his family for a while, it was just a good opportunity to be a sounding ear for him. If you keep players in the right headspace, the clubs will get them to perform at their optimum.' Sturt's Unley Oval home was named Thomas Farms Oval last year, but it is with the Crows that the family has had a national impact, starting with a small sponsorship in the early 2000s and banner advertising at Football Park, to becoming one of Adelaide's biggest sponsors, alongside Toyota. Loading Thomas' commitment can be measured by how he drove 17 hours from Toowoomba, where his daughter was competing in a national equestrian competition, to Melbourne in time to watch the 2017 grand final. He is hopeful the Crows have learned the necessary lessons from that period to sustain success. 'The club's really had a good inward look at itself and said 'we've got to change the way we go about things' and we're starting to see the fruits of that now,' he says. 'It was always hard for the club to attract or retain players, so I think the club has done a wonderful job to get into a position where players want to come here. 'Having Jordan [Dawson] and others coming back to the club has been a huge benefit and could set up one of those foundations, where clubs like Geelong and Hawthorn have been able to have very good success from stable groups of senior players, which allows you to blood younger players and gives you stability.' Tragedy and misadventure The Crows' sustained off-field success has long competed with unwanted headlines, fluctuating on-field fortunes and an Adelaide fishbowl. The club sat highly in the public's estimation for how bravely, openly and gracefully it handled the unfathomable tragedy of senior coach Phil Walsh's murder in the middle of the 2015 season. The off-field response, combined with a sterling performance on the park, resulted in a finals campaign fought in Walsh's memory. Adelaide's AFLW program is the envy of the league, with three premierships to date, despite not yet having a home ground on which to play consistently. But over the past 15 years, there has also been the Kurt Tippett salary cap scandal, the aforementioned camp and former captain Taylor Walker's racial vilification case, to name three instances where the Crows became a national conversation topic for the wrong reasons. 'Having such a supporter base, anything that happens to the Crows is newsworthy, good or bad,' Olsen says. 'That brings a focus and profile that sometimes you would prefer not to have. 'The profile builds supporter base, membership and interaction with the club, but the high profile also brings its challenges, particularly for some of the players where the 'fishbowl' is evident in their daily lives out and about in the community. That's a part of it, but it goes with the territory. 'I think it's really important to be as transparent and open as you can be. If you make a mistake, the best thing to do is to front up and explain it immediately, and cop it on the chin, certainly not to attempt to obfuscate.' Since 2020, Adelaide's efforts to recover from the own goals of 2017 and 2018 have been slow but steady. The club now has an enviable playing list, an improving industry reputation, and is back growing its membership and supporter base after several years of dwindling numbers. Olsen and his board have made a point of reconnecting with past players, supporters or the small and medium-sized businesses that have always been the lifeblood of SA. Counsel is sought from a clutch of former club decision-makers, including Chapman, his former deputy Jim Hazel, Hurley and also Bill Sanders, the club's avuncular first chief executive and later its third chairman. Sanders has spent long hours working to repair the relationship between the club and Andrew McLeod, one of their greatest players. McLeod was among the most outspoken critics in 2020, pointing particularly to a sense that Adelaide's history had been taken for granted. That is something Silvers and Olsen have worked to rectify, although the chairman says carefully that the Crows' relationship with McLeod is still 'a journey'. Another member of the premiership group is former ruckman Shaun Rehn, who spoke frequently and at length with Olsen in the early part of his time in the chair. But, adds Olsen, 'Not recently, because I presume that therefore we've done a journey and picked up on a number of aspects that guys were disappointed about.' Other past players spoken to by this masthead still believe the Crows can do more to connect with those who did not play in premierships or play 100 games or more. Sam Jacobs leads the past players' group, with premiership captain Bickley as his deputy. 'There's not that tribal connection you see at other clubs,' one player says. Nonetheless, Balme's appointment has offered cause for optimism. He is a figure synonymous with smart decisions, care for players and staff and premiership success. It has taken a long time to get there, however. 'If I gave advice to future chairs, avoid rebuilds,' says Olsen, who plans to retire from the board in 2027. 'They are long and they are painful and you've got to work your way through it. I remember Rob Chapman sending me a text when we had a really good win, he said 'enjoy the moment, because it will make up for all the others you'll go through'.' Ghosts of Football Park Max Basheer, the long-serving SANFL president, has penned a memoir of his decades in football that will only be published after he dies. One nugget Basheer has offered up already is how he effectively secured the creation of the Crows in September 1990 with cold, hard cash. He promised to hand the league's then-chief Ross Oakley $1 million in the AFL's bank account within days of a secret meeting at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. The speed and the secrecy were necessary because Adelaide's creation came as a result of Port Adelaide's own attempt to join the AFL by stealth a couple of months earlier – after years of talks about an SA-based VFL/AFL team had got nowhere. A court injunction by SANFL clubs succeeded in stalling Port's bid, but it was Basheer's speedy use of the league's bank account that truly kicked off the Crows. Loading That 1990 saga was the starting point for a rich rivalry between Adelaide and Port, but it also underscored how much the Crows were considered to be the SANFL's baby. Independence from the state league, a more focused club identity and even a base to truly call home were elusive for decades, largely because of those origins. It is also why when the AFL, the state government, Port Adelaide and the South Australian Cricket Association began scheming for a way to get football back to Adelaide Oval, the Crows were initially left out of the loop, and spoke for some time about not leaving Football Park until they got the best possible terms. All parties – even Basheer – now accept that the Adelaide Oval redevelopment was a multimillion-dollar revelation. Not only did it save Port from insolvency but helped the Crows to grow, also attracting previously unseen levels of interstate interest, personified by Gather Round. Even so, the move came with financial machinations that were added to the case, often made by Port supporters and others, that the Crows are not a 'real club'. In moving home games from West Lakes to Adelaide Oval, the SANFL handed over the licences for the two clubs to the AFL, which held them as security for the Crows and Power to pay a fee back to the state league. Loading Until that fee is paid off in 2028, the AFL owns the licence and theoretically has the right to veto club board appointments and other major decisions. That has led to claims that the Crows are the plaything of AFL House. But Olsen stresses work is under way to turn Adelaide into a more traditional, membership-based organisation when the final payment is made three years from now. 'At that point, the licence held by the AFL and their one voting member returns to us and we will then look at the constitution,' Olsen says. 'We're a club that's never reached out for mendicant funding from the AFL, always stood on our own two feet, and in this whole period the AFL has never rejected a board member or any decision the Adelaide Football Club has taken in regard to its governance structure.' The Crows' new home at Thebarton– a $100 million development partly funded by donors including the Thomas family in addition to $40 million in state and federal money – will mark the completion of a journey from SANFL invention to fully realised independence.
The Age
29-05-2025
- Sport
- The Age
How a club legend, a meat billionaire and a former premier led the Crows out of the darkness
Every AFL club has a network of influencers who make things happen through their wealth, fame or political connections. This is our series on the football world's movers and shakers. See all 9 stories. As Mark Ricciuto picked up the phone to call Neil Balme in the winter of 2020, little did the former Crows captain know that he was speaking with the figure who would become his replacement as the most senior football person on the board of the Adelaide Football Club. Back then, Ricciuto was wrestling with the struggles of the bottom club in the league, with a rookie coach in Matthew Nicks, a thin playing list and a psyche bruised by the 2017 grand final defeat, the infamous 2018 pre-season camp and all that flowed from it. Balme, then ensconced at Richmond, seemed the obvious choice for Ricciuto as what he called a 'godfather of football' for the Crows, steeped in both South Australian football (as former coach of Norwood and Woodville West Torrens) and more contemporary successes as a football department overseer for Collingwood, Geelong and the Tigers. Those initial conversations with Ricciuto planted a seed for Balme to think more about Adelaide, even as health problems precluded him from accepting a full-time job. The Crows were also searching for their next chairman. Rob Chapman, who had held the role since 2009, was aware that the club needed a fresh figurehead after the camp scandal. His first succession plan had been waylaid by the death of his well-liked deputy Bob Foord in December 2017, leaving Chapman to turn to someone who'd often been on the opposite side of the negotiating table: SANFL chairman and former Liberal premier John Olsen. Olsen spent as much as eight weeks mulling it over. He was conscious of how the Crows carried so much expectation within the state, dating back to his time as premier between 1996 and 2001. Tellingly, Olsen had experienced the rush of optimism wrought by the club's only flags, in 1997 and 1998. 'The first flag was won just after we'd lost the [Formula 1] grand prix to Melbourne, we'd had a drought, the State Bank had fallen over, the psyche of the state was flat,' he says. 'But that win just lifted people. I can't describe to you just how impactful that was in the community.' Olsen made two swift decisions on his arrival. He parted ways with the club's previous chief executive Andrew Fagan, who had a background in rugby union, and replaced him with Tim Silvers, Hawthorn's longtime COO. The other call was to push for the introduction of term limits on the board, to allow for continuous regeneration of the club's leadership and to head-off accusations of a 'boys' club' at Adelaide. Olsen wanted a 10-year limit, but ultimately agreed to a compromise of 12. That meant Ricciuto's time would be up at the end of this year. He was the club's football director from 2014 after becoming disenchanted by the Crows' decision-making in the years after his playing retirement in 2007. Ricciuto has been central to every major football appointment since: sacking Brenton Sanderson, then hiring senior coaches Phil Walsh, Don Pyke and Nicks, football department heads Brett Burton and Adam Kelly, and this year's addition of Brisbane Lions coaching stalwart Murray Davis to assist Nicks. He has since been a driver of the current rebuilding path. But over the same decade, Ricciuto has also been a high-profile lightning rod for criticism of the club. In his morning radio gig with Triple M, the Brownlow medallist did not always respond to these barbs with measured words, and fired a few of his own at other clubs. And while there was robust debate around the board table about the extent to which the turkeys would vote for Thanksgiving, a fresh approach to Balme, alongside former Crows utility and St Kilda list manager James Gallagher, brought reassurance that the club's football expertise would be enhanced rather than diminished in Ricciuto's wake. Loading Importantly, Balme and Gallagher are running their eyes over the program of head coach Nicks, who is under contract until 2026, and will decide what else can be done to help the players make the most of their 'premiership window'. Balme, of course, has relationships with the likes of Damien Hardwick and Chris Scott, should the Crows decide they need to headhunt a premiership coach as the last piece of the puzzle. But as multiple other clubs will attest, Balme primarily brings reassurance and a seasoned eye. 'Some of the meetings I've seen where they've had an issue they needed to fix and the way they've done that and engaged the players to come up with an answer and buy-in has been very, very good,' Balme says. 'They've got a very logical feel for how things are going, not 'if we don't play well you're a useless player, you're a useless coach'. And that's more important if you're a club like Adelaide where everyone has an opinion about you.' Ricciuto is revered in Adelaide. He is in business with pub baron and former Crows director Peter Hurley, whom he counts alongside Chapman as his two greatest mentors. Until 2023, Ricciuto owned the iconic Alma Tavern in Norwood alongside Hurley and Crows champions Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker. 'I've always said to CEOs or chairs that I'll stay as long as I'm wanted and as long as they think I'm the best person for the job, that's all I'm interested in,' Ricciuto says. 'If term limits are going to help the football club then I'll do what needs to be done, but personally they're not the sorts of things I'm concerned about.' But now that the club has put a limit on his tenure, he is relieved that Balme was eventually able to answer the call. So is Olsen. 'Mark's hard to replace in the context of time commitment, his absolute passion for the club,' Olsen says. 'But in bringing Neil and James in, you bring in not only Neil's footy experience and a whole raft of intellectual property he brings to the board table, but also James in a different generation that brings in a list management skill set. 'You ensure that as far as football strategy is concerned you have people well-versed and experienced being able to have an informed debate at board level where decisions are made. You could argue there's two replacing one to get that, but the simple fact is term limits give you the guardrails to ensure you put in place measures for continuity, not disruption.' Adelaide's $2.27 billion benefactor If Ricciuto has been the Crows' highest profile powerbroker over the past decade, its wealthiest has arisen from the most successful business in South Australia over the same period. Darren Thomas and his father Chris are the principals of the meat company Thomas Foods International, which posted revenue of $3.29 billion last year to make it Australia's 14th largest business by that measure. Formed in 1988, the company built up over the same period in which the Crows did. In recent years Darren Thomas has effectively taken over from club patron and Clipsal impresario Rob Gerard as the club's most important benefactor. It's no coincidence that Thomas was one of a select few invited to help turn the first sod for the club's new base at Thebarton Oval. Thomas played for South Adelaide and Sturt, before turning full-time to the family business, of which he is now the managing director. He counts inaugural Crows Peter McIntyre, Mark Bickley and Nigel Smart among his friends from South Adelaide, and also reels off Ricciuto, Simon Goodwin, Tony Modra and Matthew Powell as close mates. He was with Goodwin when Melbourne won the 2021 flag in Perth, and attended the Melbourne coach's wedding earlier this year. He also has links to AFL House royalty, as a friend of Gillon McLachlan and one of his predecessors, Wayne Jackson. 'We still buy a lot of Wayne's cattle,' Thomas says. 'And we provide the meat for the annual AFL lunch at Australia House in London.' It is not uncommon for Thomas to mentor Crows players. He was introduced to James Podsiadly in 2014, becoming friends and then business partners around the creation of the AFL Max indoor facility that numerous other Crows figures also invested in. And he is a regular coffee partner of Adelaide's precision goalkicker Darcy Fogarty. 'You're just there to listen and help them think through some things,' he says. 'Going back to the early days when we were nothing and I knew nothing, I had some people who were impactful on me, who happened to come through football and my school, Westminster, some of the teachers there. So I've never forgotten those things and I like to give back. 'Darce being a country boy and knowing his family for a while, it was just a good opportunity to be a sounding ear for him. If you keep players in the right headspace, the clubs will get them to perform at their optimum.' Sturt's Unley Oval home was named Thomas Farms Oval last year, but it is with the Crows that the family has had a national impact, starting with a small sponsorship in the early 2000s and banner advertising at Football Park, to becoming one of Adelaide's biggest sponsors, alongside Toyota. Loading Thomas' commitment can be measured by how he drove 17 hours from Toowoomba, where his daughter was competing in a national equestrian competition, to Melbourne in time to watch the 2017 grand final. He is hopeful the Crows have learned the necessary lessons from that period to sustain success. 'The club's really had a good inward look at itself and said 'we've got to change the way we go about things' and we're starting to see the fruits of that now,' he says. 'It was always hard for the club to attract or retain players, so I think the club has done a wonderful job to get into a position where players want to come here. 'Having Jordan [Dawson] and others coming back to the club has been a huge benefit and could set up one of those foundations, where clubs like Geelong and Hawthorn have been able to have very good success from stable groups of senior players, which allows you to blood younger players and gives you stability.' Tragedy and misadventure The Crows' sustained off-field success has long competed with unwanted headlines, fluctuating on-field fortunes and an Adelaide fishbowl. The club sat highly in the public's estimation for how bravely, openly and gracefully it handled the unfathomable tragedy of senior coach Phil Walsh's murder in the middle of the 2015 season. The off-field response, combined with a sterling performance on the park, resulted in a finals campaign fought in Walsh's memory. Adelaide's AFLW program is the envy of the league, with three premierships to date, despite not yet having a home ground on which to play consistently. But over the past 15 years, there has also been the Kurt Tippett salary cap scandal, the aforementioned camp and former captain Taylor Walker's racial vilification case, to name three instances where the Crows became a national conversation topic for the wrong reasons. 'Having such a supporter base, anything that happens to the Crows is newsworthy, good or bad,' Olsen says. 'That brings a focus and profile that sometimes you would prefer not to have. 'The profile builds supporter base, membership and interaction with the club, but the high profile also brings its challenges, particularly for some of the players where the 'fishbowl' is evident in their daily lives out and about in the community. That's a part of it, but it goes with the territory. 'I think it's really important to be as transparent and open as you can be. If you make a mistake, the best thing to do is to front up and explain it immediately, and cop it on the chin, certainly not to attempt to obfuscate.' Since 2020, Adelaide's efforts to recover from the own goals of 2017 and 2018 have been slow but steady. The club now has an enviable playing list, an improving industry reputation, and is back growing its membership and supporter base after several years of dwindling numbers. Olsen and his board have made a point of reconnecting with past players, supporters or the small and medium-sized businesses that have always been the lifeblood of SA. Counsel is sought from a clutch of former club decision-makers, including Chapman, his former deputy Jim Hazel, Hurley and also Bill Sanders, the club's avuncular first chief executive and later its third chairman. Sanders has spent long hours working to repair the relationship between the club and Andrew McLeod, one of their greatest players. McLeod was among the most outspoken critics in 2020, pointing particularly to a sense that Adelaide's history had been taken for granted. That is something Silvers and Olsen have worked to rectify, although the chairman says carefully that the Crows' relationship with McLeod is still 'a journey'. Another member of the premiership group is former ruckman Shaun Rehn, who spoke frequently and at length with Olsen in the early part of his time in the chair. But, adds Olsen, 'Not recently, because I presume that therefore we've done a journey and picked up on a number of aspects that guys were disappointed about.' Other past players spoken to by this masthead still believe the Crows can do more to connect with those who did not play in premierships or play 100 games or more. Sam Jacobs leads the past players' group, with premiership captain Bickley as his deputy. 'There's not that tribal connection you see at other clubs,' one player says. Nonetheless, Balme's appointment has offered cause for optimism. He is a figure synonymous with smart decisions, care for players and staff and premiership success. It has taken a long time to get there, however. 'If I gave advice to future chairs, avoid rebuilds,' says Olsen, who plans to retire from the board in 2027. 'They are long and they are painful and you've got to work your way through it. I remember Rob Chapman sending me a text when we had a really good win, he said 'enjoy the moment, because it will make up for all the others you'll go through'.' Ghosts of Football Park Max Basheer, the long-serving SANFL president, has penned a memoir of his decades in football that will only be published after he dies. One nugget Basheer has offered up already is how he effectively secured the creation of the Crows in September 1990 with cold, hard cash. He promised to hand the league's then-chief Ross Oakley $1 million in the AFL's bank account within days of a secret meeting at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne. The speed and the secrecy were necessary because Adelaide's creation came as a result of Port Adelaide's own attempt to join the AFL by stealth a couple of months earlier – after years of talks about an SA-based VFL/AFL team had got nowhere. A court injunction by SANFL clubs succeeded in stalling Port's bid, but it was Basheer's speedy use of the league's bank account that truly kicked off the Crows. Loading That 1990 saga was the starting point for a rich rivalry between Adelaide and Port, but it also underscored how much the Crows were considered to be the SANFL's baby. Independence from the state league, a more focused club identity and even a base to truly call home were elusive for decades, largely because of those origins. It is also why when the AFL, the state government, Port Adelaide and the South Australian Cricket Association began scheming for a way to get football back to Adelaide Oval, the Crows were initially left out of the loop, and spoke for some time about not leaving Football Park until they got the best possible terms. All parties – even Basheer – now accept that the Adelaide Oval redevelopment was a multimillion-dollar revelation. Not only did it save Port from insolvency but helped the Crows to grow, also attracting previously unseen levels of interstate interest, personified by Gather Round. Even so, the move came with financial machinations that were added to the case, often made by Port supporters and others, that the Crows are not a 'real club'. In moving home games from West Lakes to Adelaide Oval, the SANFL handed over the licences for the two clubs to the AFL, which held them as security for the Crows and Power to pay a fee back to the state league. Loading Until that fee is paid off in 2028, the AFL owns the licence and theoretically has the right to veto club board appointments and other major decisions. That has led to claims that the Crows are the plaything of AFL House. But Olsen stresses work is under way to turn Adelaide into a more traditional, membership-based organisation when the final payment is made three years from now. 'At that point, the licence held by the AFL and their one voting member returns to us and we will then look at the constitution,' Olsen says. 'We're a club that's never reached out for mendicant funding from the AFL, always stood on our own two feet, and in this whole period the AFL has never rejected a board member or any decision the Adelaide Football Club has taken in regard to its governance structure.' The Crows' new home at Thebarton– a $100 million development partly funded by donors including the Thomas family in addition to $40 million in state and federal money – will mark the completion of a journey from SANFL invention to fully realised independence.
7NEWS
22-05-2025
- Sport
- 7NEWS
Adelaide great Mark Ricciuto calls for AFL investigation as ex-umpire Troy Pannell runs from the law
The Western Bulldogs drought-breaking premiership in 2016 continues to be shrouded in controversy following fresh news ex-umpire Troy Pannell is on the run from the law. Pannell is thought to be in South Australia after failing to appear in court over allegations he is behind an $8.7 million fraud scheme. Pannell famously officiated a game in 2016 where he awarded 17 free kicks to the Western Bulldogs while only giving one to the Adelaide Crows. The Dogs narrowly won the Round 7 game and the loss arguably cost the Crows a spot in the top four and a double chance that year (they finished fifth but were on the same points as fourth-placed GWS and had a better percentage than third-placed Hawthorn). Adelaide great Mark Ricciuto now wants the AFL to investigate. 'Adelaide ended up losing the game by 15 points, if you can believe it,' Ricciuto said on Triple M. 'The Bulldogs won the flag that year. If the Bulldogs had not have won that game, they probably would have finished eighth, probably wouldn't have even advanced. 'Adelaide would have finished third on the ladder instead of fifth. We would have had a double chance ... It might have cost us a flag.' The Bulldogs finished seventh that year and went on a famous run to win the silverware. They played Sydney in the grand final but that game also ended up in controversy due to the umpiring and several free kicks that went against (or were not paid to) the Swans. After the game, Sydney were livid. The AFL would later say that the umpiring fell short of the standard expected at that level. Some of the most contentious calls or non calls included a fourth quarter incident where acting Dogs captain Easton Wood slid into Dan Hannebery's legs (that resulted in a medial ligament injury to Hannebery but no free kick). There was also another incident where Toby McLean took out Sydney star Kieren Jack's legs but the free kick surprisingly went to McLean. There was also a holding-the-ball decision against Sydney's Dane Rampe in the third quarter that the AFL admitted was wrong. That free kick led to another Bulldogs free kick that resulted in a Bulldogs goal. The slick handball work from Bulldogs' players was also, at times, questionable. Pannell, who is involved in the horse racing industry, was a whistleblower in 291 AFL games from 2005 to 2018. He was not involved in the 2016 grand final. He grew up in Victoria's western suburbs and played at junior level for local team Hoppers Crossing. He cut his teeth as an umpire in the Footscray and District league (now Western Region League). It is thought he supported the Bulldogs as a child. 'I would think now that maybe it might be worthy of it (investigation), not for that (Adelaide) game but just in general because he was involved in some horse racing,' Ricciuto said. After the Crows-Bulldogs game in 2016, AFL's general manager of football Mark Evans (now at Gold Coast) defended Pannell. 'The free kick count was a heavily skewed count, not that it has to be equal. But certainly every time you see something like that you look for what are the errors,' Evans said. 'You look at missed free kicks and you look at the incorrect free kicks that were paid. Some of those certainly favoured the Bulldogs.' Pannell made light of it. 'For me, I tend to laugh about it a little bit. It makes it a little bit easier,' he said. 'People blow up photos and put them on your desk. You really need to laugh it off. 'I review my own performance first and put that in, then they (the umpires' department) review it and send me through my feedback and we discuss things. 'Once I've watched the game back and done my own self-assessment, I generally know if there's one or two things I can take out of it that I could have done better.' Pannell allegedly defrauded shipping company SeaRoad Shipping $8.7 million over a decade, while working out of the Port of Melbourne, according to the Herald Sun. The scheme allegedly involved Pannell generating invoices to pay a company named Independent Container Surveyors & Assessors (ICSA) to repair damaged shipping containers. Each 'repair' cost SeaRoad $800 to $900. It is alleged Pannell had authority to approve purchase orders up to the value of $5000, and it was only when a finance manager noticed ICSA was not registered for GST that suspicions were raised. SeaRoad alleges ICSA did no work to repair any containers and never checked the work had been done as it trusted Pannell to follow the proper processes of the company. 'SeaRoad is satisfied you have committed serious misconduct. You have been the sole shareholder and director of ICSA from 2010 to date. We find your response that you did not know you held these positions to be fanciful,' a letter from SeaRoad to Pannell, tendered in the civil court case, read.
Courier-Mail
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Courier-Mail
‘Put him in a headlock': Mark Ricciuto comes clean on infamous pub brawl, Port Adelaide vs Adelaide
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News. 'I won't be putting him in a headlock, that's for sure.' Mark Ricciuto knows a thing or two about Showdowns and the AFL great is fired up for the 57th edition of the bitter clash between the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide on Saturday night, exclusive on Fox Footy and Kayo. Port are coming off a 90-point loss but Ricciuto believes form goes out the window in Showdowns, where there is no shortage of feistiness, as the Crows legend and Fox Footy expert knows all too well. FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every AFL match this Saturday LIVE. Catch all the action in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. Ricciuto was involved in an famous fight the day after Port Adelaide won the 2002 Showdown by eight points — the Power's fourth Showdown victory in a row — when players from both teams kicked on to Adelaide's Ramsgate Hotel. Kane Cornes lifted the lid on the infamous pub brawl in 2020, telling AFL Media Ricciuto and hard nosed Port midfielder Josh Carr went at each other in one of footy's most legendary off-field scuffles. 'A conversation struck up between Mark Ricciuto and Josh Carr when 'Roo' asked Josh Carr if (he) could please join him outside,' Cornes recalled. Josh Carr (middle left blue jersey) and Mark Ricciuto (with ball) clashed in countless AFL Showdowns. 'Now Josh Carr was unaware of why Mark Ricciuto wanted him to join him outside of the establishment. But in the end, we know what happened. 'There was some sort of push and shove. Mark Ricciuto says that he chucked Josh Carr over the bonnet of a car. Certainly from the people that I've spoken to, there was a serious headlock placed by Ricciuto on Carr, which forced some of Carr's teammates from Port Adelaide to come over quickly and try and sort this out, because they were worried Carr was going to get strangled. X Ricciuto chuckled when asked about the incident and his feelings towards Carr, who will take over Ken Hinkley as Port Adelaide's head coach next season, meaning the old foes will face off again when Ricciuto interviews Carr on Fox Footy. 'I will not be interviewing him (Carr) in a headlock, that's for sure,' Ricciuto told 'But we've got a lot of respect for each other. 'Carr-y' is a great fella. 'I didn't like him at all during my playing career. I didn't like any taggers to be honest when I was in my playing career, but as soon as I finished, there's always a mutual respect, you just don't show it while you're playing. Ricciuto on the bottom of a pack with Josh Carr (right) in the 2002 Showdown at Footy Park. 'You probably pretend you hate him even more than what you really do and then afterwards you kiss and make up and you do that with everyone. Well, I have anyway. 'I'm friends with everyone from Port Adelaide. I don't think I've got any enemies, that I know of anyway.' Ricciuto said time heals all wounds and he wishes nothing but the best for Carr as he becomes a senior AFL coach. 'He's a ripping fellow and I wish him all the best in his coaching career,' Ricciuto said. 'I think it's a great story for Josh to come from where he's come from and to be the next coach of the footy club. I think that's awesome.' 'YOU GO OUT THERE TRYING TO HURT PEOPLE' Showdowns can be seriously fiery contests where players push the line, as was seen last year when Port's Dan Houston bumped Crows star Izak Rankine and knocked him out cold. 'I'm sure Dan Houston didn't try and knock out Izak Rankine last year,' Ricciuto said. 'I'm sure what Houston was trying to do was be tough and put his body on the line for his teammates. That's what he was trying do, he got it slightly wrong. That's what happens. 'So it's a fine line and that's why we love the game.' Port Adelaide's Josh Carr then and now. The 1998 Crows premiership winner added: 'A Showdown is like any big game like a final, grand final — you've got to be careful of doing is not amping it up too much. 'I've absolutely been guilty of that where you get amped up to the eyeballs and you go out there and trying to kill or hurt people and you give away stupid free kicks, and you do the exact opposite of what you really want to do. 'So it's a balance between channeling all your energy and nerves into what you got to do is put all that at the at the ball. 'That's the balance and sometimes, yeah that spills over.' Mark Ricciuto knows Showdowns can get feisty. Port's Conor Rozee and Adelaide's Jordan Dawson with the Showdown Shield. (Photo by) Ricciuto is a longstanding member of Fox Footy's commentary team as well as a Crows board member, and he's used to receiving a fruity reception from fans of both Adelaide teams. 'I've been doing it (commentating) since the day I retired, so I'm pretty good at it, I think,' Ricciuto said. 'If this is an indication of being unbiased or neutral, I do get abused by both sets of supporters. 'So if I check my Twitter or X account and I get abused by both sets of supporters then you know you've been pretty neutral.' As for this weekend's Showdown, Ricciuto is tipping 'the Crows by a point'. Watch the Adelaide Crows vs Port Adelaide in the AFL Showdown, live and exclusive on Kayo Sports on Saturday at 8.10pm AEST and 7.40pm local time. Originally published as 'Put him in a headlock': Mark Ricciuto comes clean on infamous pub brawl
