Speaking to melbournefc.com.au, Jackson, who started on May 1, said how the club does business from here on in was critical to the future of the Demons.
“I think we’ve got to win back some respect from the industry, from our members and supporters and from our peers, which are other clubs. Generally speaking, it’s not just about football on the ground – it goes beyond that,” he said.
“If you look back, we’ve had two pretty significant on field horrors in the last 20 months – [a loss to] Geelong by 186 points and to Essendon by 148 … and in between that we’ve had a lot of issues.”
Jackson said the club had had a “litany of off field distractions” that were not good for a young, inexperienced club.
“We’ve had a new president, we’ve lost Jim Stynes and that was obviously very difficult for the whole club … we’ve had a new coach, an interim coach, some issues with a major sponsor in EnergyWatch, we lost our No. 1 draft pick, Tom Scully, we had other distractions with Liam Jurrah and along came a tanking investigation, and now we’re right now in the middle of an AFL and ASADA investigation,” he said.
“At the moment, everyone looks resilient. I wonder deep down whether they are?
“If I can do anything as an older, wiser head and help rebuild some resilience and some experience into how we do business, well, that would be a good outcome.”
Jackson said his perceptions of Melbourne before joining were of a struggling club with a damaged brand.
“The footy team is not winning games of footy, and they’re losing by some big margins, so everyone gets some big ideas about what’s going on and what shouldn’t be done,” he said.
“My perception at the moment, internally, is that it’s a fairly inexperienced club, if you look through the playing list, the coaches and the staff. There’s some young, enthusiastic people, but they’re still relatively inexperienced in what they do.
“We don’t have a lot of experienced AFL people across all ranks … so we’ve got a bit of work to do.”
Jackson said his position came about after AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou initially contacted him, but he stressed that the AFL did not appoint him, nor was it paying his contract, which at this stage is until October 31.
“It came about because Andrew Demetriou at the AFL gave me a call and said ‘Melbourne is looking for a new CEO. They want someone to hit the ground running with AFL experience, and they don’t want to wait around and search and delay things. Would you be interested in helping out in the shorter term?’” he said.
“I said ‘well, that’s flattering and it sounds like a pretty good challenge of course’. Melbourne is a proud, founding club and the competition needs Melbourne strong, so someone’s got the view that I can help, well, I find that flattering and I’m up for the challenge. I met the board and had a similar conversation.
“I would emphasise that my appointment is by the board of the Melbourne Football Club – they’re paying me, not the AFL. I’m not put in here by the AFL.”
Jackson said he would bring “experience and wisdom” to the club, adding that he didn’t need to reinvent the wheel.
“Processes and procedures are the way a good footy club needs to be run. I hope I can add something to that. If I can do that, well, I think I’ve contributed a bit,” he said.
“I hope I can cut to the chase sooner because I was here quickly. I’ve been there before and in terms of a long term permanent CEO, who might’ve taken some of the time to be indentified and get his feet under the table – hopefully I can do that sooner.”
Jackson said it had been an “overwhelming” few days since joining the club, but added that it was too early to tell how many changes would be made to the club, but he indicated they would happen.
“I do know that we are looking at an operating loss of $1 million. If crowds do continue to decline, then the consequences of that might be a little bit north of that,” he said.
“We’ve also got some abnormal one off expenses like the AFL fine and the legal costs associated with that, and the changeover of CEO.
So we can’t sit there and just accept that, because going forward, the expectations of 2014 from a revenue point of view may not be much different to what they are this year.
“I think the footy structure isn’t structured the best way, as far as industry standard goes. I think we’ve got too many people coming through to the CEO and I think you’ve got to get football people controlling and running footy departments. So I think they’re the two obvious things we’re going to have to make some changes around.”
