SEARCH FINDS THE MAN NEXT DOOR

Given its standing as Australia’s peak sporting body and one of the most powerful – and most scrutinised – institutions in the country, whoever lands the plum job as AFL chief executive must immediately prove his bona fides.

That was the case on Monday when a tortuously long process came to a merciful end when Andrew Dillon was named as Gillon McLachlan’s replacement.

Just as when McLachlan replaced Andrew Demetriou in 2014, the million-dollar global search led by high-priced executive recruitment firms ended up with the winning candidate sitting in the next office.

Dillon, who joined the AFL as legal counsel in 2000, moved stealthily through the organisation. He was an impressive operator from the start but not with the same charisma and ability to capture a room as his “great mate” McLachlan.

What sometimes got lost with McLachlan was that for all his charm and brilliant deal-making, and despite his inherited wealth, he grew up adoring the game every bit as much as the millions of others who follow it religiously.

He just had the good fortune to become its gamekeeper.

In that respect, Dillon is cut from a similar cloth and great lengths were taken to underline his football credentials, both in the media release that accompanied his appointment and at the media conference itself last Monday.

They include 290 games for Victorian amateur football powerhouse Old Xaverians, for whom he played in six premierships as a long-sleeved midfielder/back pocket.

COMMUNITY FOCUS: AFL CEO-elect Andrew Dillon is a grassroots football fan who understands its importance to the game. Below, with his wife Amanda (right) and daughters Chloe, Pippa and Lucy.

He was a committeeman and assistant coach at the Old Xavs and a junior girls football coach for the Kew Comets, and also made a two-game cameo for the Mansfield reserves in 2011.

As he joked on Monday, nothing he has done in football has been quite as difficult as organising Friday afternoon training at the Comets.

Dillon, 52, was a whip-smart student at Xavier College with a great feel for maths and science.

He graduated from Melbourne University with degrees in law and commerce and completed a post-graduate diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia.

He was an articled clerk and then a commercial lawyer at blue-chip law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth and an in-house counsel at Village Roadshow before the AFL came calling – and it was literally that –then senior executive Ben Buckley bailed him up as both were leaving a game at the MCG and inquired whether he was a lawyer because the AFL needed to bring one in-house.

It was at the MCG where Dillon saw his first AFL game – Richmond v Melbourne in 1976 – and that cemented his love of the game and made easy his pledge to put it first with every decision he makes.

“Our AFL and community clubs are the lifeblood of our game, and I will be club and community focused and committed to ensuring the game will be at the core of the AFL’s decision making,” he said.

As McLachlan’s consigliere, he has been front and centre for every consequential call made by the League for the past 10 years.

At various stages he has overseen football operations and game development and he was in the room when the AFL Commission promised to pump 10 per cent of the proceeds of the post-2025 broadcast deal into grassroots and community football.

“If we can invest that in the right way and the right places it would just propel the AFL to be the clear No. 1 sport of choice for all people … I see that as a challenge but it’s also a great opportunity,” Dillon said.

With concussion and head trauma looming as the biggest issue in the game, his legal background will be critical, and starting a team from scratch in Tasmania will be all-consuming as well.

The suggestion that Richmond CEO Brendon Gale may be seconded to the AFL to run football and Tasmania as a high-powered head of operations is wise and will hopefully happen.

Dillon will officially start on Monday, October 2, straight after this year’s Grand Final.

450 GAMES

SIMON MEREDITH

FIELD UMPIRE

150 GAMES

SAM DOCHERTY

BL/CARLTON

JARROD WITTS

COLL/GOLD COAST

150 MARVEL

STADIUM GAMES

TODD GOLDSTEIN

NORTH MELBOURNE

100 GAMES IN A ROW

CHARLIE CAMERON

BRISBANE LIONS

200 AS TEAMMATES

TRAVIS BOAK / TOM JONAS

PORT ADELAIDE

150 AS TEAMMATES

CLAYTON OLIVER / CHRISTIAN PETRACCA

MELBOURNE

TOM HAWKINS / PATRICK

DANGERFIELD

GEELONG

MARK BLICAVS / JED BEWS

GEELONG

CAREER GAMES