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April 9th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
Melbourne’s 2013 AFL campaign has claimed its first victim with chief executive Cameron Schwab stepping aside after a woeful start to the season.
The move comes just days after the Demons were booed off the MCG for the second consecutive week following a 148-point thrashing at the hands of Essendon on Saturday.
Melbourne’s season had looked ugly even before that loss, when it was hammered by 79 points by Port Adelaide in its opening clash six days earlier.
If you want to be a leader in the organisation and you’re not prepared to accept that level of responsibility, go find something else to do. It’s a performance-based industry.
“My preference was clearly to stay in the role,” Schwab told reporters at the MCG on Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the Demons had pledged to stick together through the turbulence.
“But it’s quite within the rights of the president and the board to make the call they have.
“By me stepping aside the way that I’ve chosen to following our discussions, it gives the club the opportunity to move forward.”
Coach Mark Neeld, whose record at Melbourne since taking the reins at the start of last season stands at 4-20, escaped sacking ahead of the Demons’ clash with the also-winless West Coast at the MCG on Saturday.
Club president Don McLardy said the coach’s job is safe.
“Mark Neeld is not on notice at all,” he said.
That’s footy
Schwab said he understood how the game works well enough to accept his fate.
“If you want to be a leader in the organisation and you’re not prepared to accept that level of responsibility, go find something else to do,” he said.
“It’s a performance-based industry.”
McLardy said the Melbourne Football Club board would meet in the next 24 to 48 hours to discuss Schwab’s replacement.
He said he had had a mature and sensible conversation with Schwab over how the club should move forward.
“It was a difficult discussion with Cameron but I want to pay tribute to the mature way he handled what was a tough discussion,” he said.
For the united face of our club going forward, this is a part of that.
“We’ve been through a lot together, some of those things self-inflicted and some of those no problems of our own … but we fought those through.
“But we came to a point where I felt we had to put the best interests of our club first going forward.
“Our footy club off the field has endured an unbelievable two or three years, the business has grown in that time despite our on-field performance.”
But ultimately, McLardy said, the club is judged on the results it puts on the scoreboard, which have not been good enough.
“We have a divided supporter base, a lot of members are saying ‘what’s the path forward?’ and we have to offer them hope,” he said.
“For the united face of our club going forward, this is a part of that.”
Long relationship
Schwab became the VFL/AFL’s youngest chief executive in 1988 when he joined Richmond, where he stayed until 1994 before resigning due to the Tigers’ poor on-field performances.
He later acted as a consultant to the Fremantle expansion bid before returning to the football capital as a recruiter for the Demons.
Schwab then took the reins as Melbourne chief executive in May 1997 but left in 1999, only to return in 2008 at the behest of late club president Jim Stynes.
He survived but then-coach Dean Bailey was cut loose the last time the Demons suffered a massive loss, a 186-point annihilation by Geelong in round 19, 2011 that was the second-largest loss in VFL/AFL history.
But Schwab was unable to avoid the axe this time after combined losses of 227 over two weeks that leaves the club well at the bottom of the ladder.
AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said on Monday that the AFL has provided financial and resources to other clubs and that the league was “only a phone call away”, but Melbourne had not taken up the offer.
“We’re all desperate to see the Melbourne football club improve,” he said.
Demons co-captain Jack Grimes told Grandstand on Sunday that the playing group had to stand united despite the result.
“It simply wasn’t good enough and to be honest we didn’t spend too much time talking about the game itself,” he said.
“It’s more about sticking together as a group and helping each other through this because, looking around the room, that’s as shattered as I’ve seen a bunch of blokes.”
Rocky road
Earlier this year Melbourne was fined $500,000 but avoided losing draft picks after the AFL found the club guilty of conduct unbecoming the game – but not tanking – in the 2009 season.
The punishment was the result of the AFL’s lengthy investigation into whether the club tanked matches in 2009 so as to qualify for a priority pick in the draft.
The club had strongly denied tanking and had been negotiating the penalties with the AFL ahead of Tuesday’s announcement to the media.
Melbourne’s then-general manager of football operations Chris Connolly, who remains at the club in a marketing role, was banned from all AFL activities until February 1, 2014.
Then-coach Bailey, now an assistant with the Crows, was suspended for the first 16 rounds of 2013.
AFL boss Demetriou was adamant there was no evidence to suggest Melbourne deliberately set out to lose matches in 2009.
“Tanking is not performing at your merits and not trying to win the football match, and I want people to understand, and I know some people are questioning this decision,” he told Fairfax Radio at the time.
“This is the result of an eight-month investigation and you can only prove things on evidence and there’s nothing to substantiate a tanking allegation.”
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Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-09/demons-boss-schwab-steps-aside/4618876
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