Galbally: Eddie needs Pies succession plan
EDDIE McGuire needs to put a succession plan in place by Round 1 next year and publicly declare his intention to vacate the Collingwood presidency, long- time club lawyer Francis Galbally says.
Joining his brother David in speaking out about the Magpies’ recent “failure of leadership”, Galbally said the “overwhelming view” of the
Collingwood community was that McGuire had stayed in the top job for too long.
“Eddie needs a succession plan in place and he needs to state publicly that he is going to go of his own making,” Galbally said. “There needs to be change – a total refreshing at the top of the club – and it certainly needs to be in place by the time we get to March.”
Galbally, who was the Magpies’ honorary solicitor from 1976- 94 and is a prominent Melbourne businessman and company director, identified Paul Tuddenham, Craig Kelly and Sally Capp as future Collingwood presidents.
“Eddie has been fabulous for the club, there is no doubt about it,” Galbally said.
“He has been the best president the club has ever had. It needed him at the time. He took the club from the 19th century to the 21st century in two years, forget the 20th — but you can’t be a one- man band, and that is what has happened here.
“Now what company ever goes forward without having a proper succession plan? Nobody. But Eddie won’t go and when you have a failure of leadership, you then have a failure at all levels in the organisation, and that is what you’ve got now.
“The emperor has no clothes, I mean that is really where it is at the moment. And in history, people hang on for too long. John Howard did – perhaps the best prime minister the country ever had, yet he hung on for too long.
“They don’t see that they have to go, that’s the problem.”
Of more than 8000 readers who responded to a Herald Sun poll on Friday asking if it was time McGuire stepped down, 81 per cent said yes.