Craig Kelly’s appointment as Collingwood’s chief executive is set to provide the Magpies with an insight rival clubs could only dream of.
Kelly was installed on Monday after months of speculation that he was the club’s man, stepping back from sports marketing agency TLA in the process.
The former Magpie – who founded and led TLA - resigned from his executive and board positions when accepting the position at Collingwood.
Among many business interests, TLA has a management arm and oversees more than 300 AFL players, as well as a number of coaches.
SEN’s Sam Edmund likened the appointment to that of Steve Hocking at Geelong, where his return as CEO saw the Cats claim the flag a year later.
“The competitive advantage if there is a comparison… is to 12 months earlier when Steve Hocking returns to Geelong having been the AFL’s football boss and in that role he was quite active as the agent for change if you like, instituting a raft of tweaks and rule changes to speed up the game, and then he comes in and joins Geelong,” Edmund explained on SEN Breakfast.
“The competitive advantage with that will be mirrored with Craig Kelly taking charge, albeit in a different guise… it’ll be huge.”
Hocking was credited with resetting Geelong and played a role in the process that saw Geelong adopt a new game style that proved successful in 2022.
Kelly sold TLA Australia for over $30 million in 2019 but had remained as its CEO until joining Collingwood.
While Kelly says he manages no current players, as a veteran in the industry and responsible for the largest player management agency in the AFL, Edmund believes he clearly has a unique insight for the Magpies.
“His knowledge of what the pay structure looks like across the competition and the market and the value of players and what it is going to be and what it has been is going to be almost unique,” Edmund added.
“He’s coming into a club who, let’s be honest, historically has had it’s salary cap concerns and is still pretty tight in the cap.
“He comes in as an absolute expert in this space. All the diversifying of business interests from Collingwood which has given them grief over time, his off-field expertise as much as anything, even away from the ground, will be enormous for the Pies.”
Kelly - who has denied a conflict of interest - will commence with Collingwood on February 20, just under a month out from the 2023 AFL season.