PAUL McNamee was so determined to tackle the most challenging job in football that he adopted some intriguing cloak-and-dagger tactics to win the job of chief executive of the Melbourne Football Club.
Not only did the former Wimbledon doubles champion don a hat and dark glasses to infiltrate the Demons' family day outside the MCG 10 days ago, but the one-time Oak Park pool attendant quietly lined up his own interviews with the AFL and the Melbourne Cricket Club in a bid to pinpoint the severity of Melbourne's financial and political problems.
McNamee, who only weeks earlier had overseen a thrilling three-hole playoff at the Australian Women's Open golf at Kingston Heath, also prepared and filmed his own mock TV commercial promoting the AFL's oldest club as part of his presentation to the Demons' three-member subcommittee.
McNamee's plan emerged as the winning one two days ago when he won the job on the eve of the club's round one clash with Hawthorn and its 150th birthday celebrations, after a close battle with Geelong's second most powerful administrator, Stuart Fox. Former Fitzroy footballer Michael Conlan, now president of Reebok Korea, was the other leading candidate.
McNamee's commercial was filmed in a friend's back garden and pushed his message of the quality of the Melbourne Football Club. The man who acted as chief executive for the Australian Open tennis over a spectacularly successful eight years until 2006, and who still runs his beloved Hopman Cup in Perth as he has for 20 years, demonstrated to the Demons how strongly he would promote their brand and hopefully attract much needed sponsors.
For the past two years McNamee has worked as executive chairman of the Australian men's and women's golf opens — a two-day-a-week job — but when Melbourne's head-hunters went searching for a saviour he eagerly put his name forward.
As a doubles tennis player, McNamee has a string of Wimbledon and Australian Open titles to his name and was part of Australia's victorious Davis Cup team 21 years ago. His football pedigree is also impressive. McNamee boasts triple-Brownlow medallist Dick Reynolds as his uncle and is an Essendon fanatic, but he demonstrated to MCC chief executive Stephen Gough and AFL money man Ian Anderson that he believed he could rebuild Melbourne.
McNamee will face the media today in a bid to sell his message, something he is used to in tennis and golf. Last night the club farewelled his predecessor, former Age editor-in-chief Steve Harris, who had hoped to complete his position at the end of this season but was pushed out last month after falling out with president Paul Gardner and his board.
While the club overlooked the more charismatic Kevin Sheedy in favour of the lesser known Port Adelaide assistant Dean Bailey for the senior coaching position last year, McNamee was clearly the highest-profile candidate for the job.
His challenges include reducing Melbourne's multimillion-dollar debt, striking a profitable deal with the MCG and securing funding for the club's new headquarters in the Olympic Park precinct.
