A day after he surprised the sports and marketing industries with news he was joining Melbourne-based communications holding company Bastion Group, former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou has hinted that he has more tricks up his sleeve.
Demetriou officially stepped down from the most powerful position in Australian sport last week and the announcement of his shareholding has set tongues wagging in Melbourne about a potential battle with rival company Gemba, where the embattled suspended Essendon coach James Hird is a director.
The plot surrounding Demetriou's arrival at Bastion also thickens with the revelation fellow Bastion director Hamish McLachlan is the brother of Demetriou's AFL successor Gillon McLachlan.
While AFL roots run thick through Bastion, founded by former player James Watt with his father Jim Watt, former CEO of St Kilda Football Club, Demetriou insisted he is not there to chase AFL business.
“The potential I see in the group isn't at AFL, it's at a much broader scale because I think some of the things they are doing from an innovation perspective – they cut across not just our code but other codes and also cut across other businesses,” Demetriou told AdNews.
“I haven't spoken (to them) about AFL and I didn't want to get involved because I'd provide some sort of 'in' to the AFL, I wanted to get involved for the exact opposite so I could broaden their scope.”
He also insisted that he was unaware of Hamish McLachlan's involvement in Bastion until he began discussions.
“I didn't know that Hamish is involved in Bastion,” Demteriou said.
“When I found that out from Jim it was ironic but it was quite nice because I have always quite like Hamish.”
Demetriou signalled that there were more twists to come.
“I'm not going to be running any sport,” he said.
“I have been thinking about what I'd be doing for the better part of 12 months, I have had things that I've looked at and things that I like and I don't and over the coming months … I'll be saying yes to a couple of things and they will obviously be made public and they might surprise a couple of people.”
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