Collingwood premiership player Craig Kelly is the favourite to take over the club's vacant CEO role according to SEN’s Sam Edmund.
The CEO position was recently left vacant by Mark Anderson who tendered his resignation after five years in charge last month.
With Kelly possessing considerable CEO experience as boss of talent and sports marketing agency TLA, Edmund says it’s near a “fait accompli” that he gets the nod.
“There’s work happening at Collingwood to appoint a new CEO, obviously as Mark Anderson has left the football club,” Edmund told SEN Breakfast.
“I had a chat with a few people yesterday, Craig Kelly is $1.01 to be the next CEO of Collingwood they reckon.
“This is what those far, far closer than me are saying, almost a fait accompli.”
Kelly is currently on long service leave from TLA and is yet to quit the company.
While Kelly doesn’t own the agency after it was sold to QMS Sport in 2019 for $32.7 million, Edmund believes he’d have to completely disengage from TLA if he were to take on the Collingwood role.
“He’s away on long service leave at the moment from TLA, he’s gone bush, he hasn’t quit that company, he sold it a few years ago,” Edmund said.
“You would think he’d have to completely disengage … his son Will is obviously on Collingwood’s list and his other son Jake plays for Essendon, but that’s no impediment having a son on the list.
“We’ve seen what’s happened with Justin Reeves and his son the ruckman Ned at Hawthorn.”
Given that TLA manages more than 300 AFL players and a raft of coaches, Edmund thinks his appointment could be a “shake-up” with Kelly coming from a unique background.
“It’d be a fair old shake-up for the AFL ecosystem if you will, to have the leader and CEO of the biggest management company (as a club CEO),” Edmund said.
“They manage 300 players, they’ve got Craig McRae on the books.
“It’s just said that this is going to happen, it’ll be in the new year, but he’ll be the next CEO of Collingwood.”
Kelly played 122 games for Collingwood between 1989 and 1996 including the drought-breaking 1990 premiership.