MELBOURNE Football Club’s goal of lifting Gosch’s Paddock to a professional AFL standard continues to develop, with CEO Gary Pert confident of the club’s progress.

A new headquarters has been the Demons’ top off-field priority of recent years, to bring together its football and administration staff, alongside the formation of a suitable training ground.

While the process has been tedious, Pert said there are some positive advancements on the horizon.

“I’m very excited where it’s at,” he told Melbourne Media in a mid-season update.

“There’s two parts to it. There’s first of all our training ground at Gosch’s Paddock and I think we all know that that’s not of an AFL standard.

“That needs to be the dimensions of other clubs and needs to be close to an MCG size.

“In regards to the home base, which is the second part of the work that we’ve been doing, the budget has been approved to finalise the design work and the planning work.

“Those designs will be completed around Christmas this year.”

The Demons are currently split across multiple locations – the AFL and AFLW football departments operate out of both AAMI Park and Casey Fields, while the administration is stationed at the MCG.

Pert acknowledged the anticipation, understanding the importance of having everyone under the same roof and a place that the Demon faithful can call home.

“It’s taken a long time to get to these points,” he said.

“[We need to be] keeping in mind this is a state government, AFL and Melbourne Football Club joint venture, putting all this together.

“When you’re trying to build a home base and a training oval, in arguably the best sporting precinct in the world – inner-city training and administration facilities, in a precinct around the MCG and in the location that we’re in at the moment – it’s going to take time. It’s going to have its challenges.

“It’s definitely in the best shape that we’ve been in and I’m hoping there will be some more announcements in the relatively short term.”

Meanwhile, Pert reinforced the financial impact of the club’s members, supporters and partners.

Melbourne relaunched its Proud to Belong, Proud to Give fundraising program earlier this week, which significantly helped combat the implications of COVID-19 during the 2020 season.

But having already felt the effects again this year – Victoria’s latest outbreak meant the club lost important games in Alice Springs and on Queen’s Birthday, costing around $1.8 million – the call for support was just as strong.  

“It was really important last year. Everyone knows that we were hugely financially impacted by the COVID shutdown, and this year, we’ve already seen we’re being impacted again,” Pert said.

“Our supporters, our corporate partners and our members have just been so amazing.

“But the reality is, [we need to keep going] to get through this period.

“With the fundraising, it was nearly $1 million we raised last year. That made the difference of us being an unassisted club.

“That meant that we didn’t need to go to the AFL and ask for funding, which then had a whole lot of conditions attached to it; conditions we don’t want, as they’re not in our best interest.

“In the same way the members are jumping on board, for those supporters that are helping us with our fundraising, if others could, I’d encourage them to.

“It’s just helping us through this really difficult financial time.”

Pert provides a further update on things both on and off the field below.