There is one person being touted as the soon-to-be-named CEO of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games Organising Committee (OCOG): Gillon McLachlan.
Nobody knows for sure whether he even wants the job, nor if his resume as an AFL CEO ticks the boxes on the Olympic head-hunter's checklist.
There is no clear-cut definition of what the CEO of an Olympic Games organising committee does, just one huge expectation: deliver.
No one has ever been an organising committee CEO twice, which means learning on the job – quickly — is essential.
Indeed, few get the chance to see the role through to its conclusion: the position tends to come with its own revolving-door, with the first CEO at some point making way for the second, and even, as happened in Sydney back in 2000, for a third.
When asked about the likelihood of a single CEO lasting the decade, Brisbane OCOG President Andrew Liveris told the ABC it was 'impossible to answer'.
"I think this is a four-year term for myself, for example. The four years will be done such that the next six years actually are done really well, so set up is important," Liveris said.
Brisbane's ten-year build-up is three years longer than what Sydney received. Based on history, that could mean four or five CEOs before the Games are staged in 2032.
The Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck told The Ticket it should be expected that some of the board members will also be "cycled through" as the phases of Games preparation shift, not to mention the changes necessitated through state and federal elections.
Compare the pair
Just how easily could McLachlan's experience in the AFL translate to running an Olympic Games?
The AFL boss continues to be a media-favourite when it comes to talk of Brisbane 2032.
He has a good working relationship with the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who will carry significant influence in deciding who will get the nod. He spent enough time in Queensland's AFL hub during COVID to almost be considered a local.
The AFL involves a domestic competition in a country of 25 million that, by 2023, will have eighteen men's and women's teams.
The AFL knows its business, is used to negotiating its own terms, controlling the outcomes, and working with a mostly-compliant domestic media.
The annual grand final is played at the MCG - Melbourne's sporting Mecca - in front of a sold-out crowd, involving around 50 players plus coaches, support staff, and other accredited personnel.
Staging an Olympic Games, on the other hand, is the equivalent of running 33 concurrent World Championships involving 10,500 athletes plus another 20,000 accredited personnel, from more than 200 countries – each with their own political, cultural, and social expectations.
But that's just the beginning.
There is also a temporary overlay of a city within a city, complete with dedicated transport routes, medical facilities, a main press centre and a broadcast centre.
All of this is used in a fortnight of frenzied activity before coming to an almost complete standstill for a couple of weeks, after which the Paralympic Games take place where the system repeats itself on a smaller scale.
The Olympic Games' population will be supported by an army of volunteers (around 70,000) that out-numbers the Australian military (61,500).
There are the contractual demands made by the International Olympic Committee, the expectations of the IOC's TOP sponsors — who spend billions of dollars a year for the privilege - plus requirements of international broadcasters who keep the games afloat.
Once you sort through all this, you begin to understand this is no clear-cut sports administrator's job. This is one that requires a web of diplomatic skills, business know-how, political savvy, and the ability to navigate a constantly-changing global environment.
Further, the OCOG works with a twelve-member IOC Coordination Commission that will be chaired by Zimbabwe's minister for youth, sport, arts and recreation, Kirsty Coventry. It also includes members from Ethiopia, Uganda, Paraguay, PNG, the Philippines, and a princess from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
It pays to remember, even though we describe it as such, it is not 'Brisbane's Games'. Brisbane is merely the host.
Currently, the Brisbane OCOG has twenty-one members representing local, state, and federal politics, Olympic and Paralympic athletes and administrators, plus business representatives. Anecdotally, the most common reaction when people are told the size of the OCOG is, 'It's unworkable'.
By way of contrast Australia's biggest companies have a board of between ten and thirteen members. The AFL is run by a commission of eight.
Does McLachlan have what it takes?
Running the AFL comes with its challenges, certainly.
Gillon McLachlan took over the top job in April 2014 amid the Essendon supplements saga, and about 14 months after the so-called 'blackest day in Australian sport'.
That saga tore apart lifelong friendships, with some players still feeling they were thrown under the bus.
In the years since, the AFL has introduced its popular women's competition and claims it has made major inroads in its diversity and inclusion.
"He's done an outstanding job," AFL Commission chair Richard Goyder told the press on the day McLachlan announced he'd be stepping down from the role at the end of the 2022 season.
Goyder read through McLachlan's scorecard from his time in charge of the AFL. It included record numbers of participation, membership, attendance, revenue, viewership, broadcast deals, the introduction of AFLW, and community facility investment.
The numbers are all positive.
Navigating through the multitude of challenges posed by COVID while running a national competition, with every state and territory operating under different regulations, was also an achievement of significance.
"Gil's also been a champion off field in terms of improving the culture and inclusiveness of the AFL."
The good and the bad
But inclusiveness and culture look very different from outside the AFL bubble.
While the metrics of the code are good, the personal costs to players and others involved in the game is missing from the balance sheet.
This week the Herald Sun published a leaked report, that had been commissioned by the AFL then sat on for eight months, revealing an environment of sexual harassment, social and cultural negativity, and exclusion experienced by girls and women in Australian footballing umpiring.
There has been no word from the AFL CEO on the damning report, although the woman deputising for him did apologise – two days after the report was leaked.
The AFL is often referenced as Australia's 'best run' sport. It runs a tight ship, for sure, with few inside willing to criticise or raise concerns publicly.
The AFL is understandably proud of its record of inclusion, boasting around fifteen per cent of players from diverse backgrounds and eleven per cent identifying as Indigenous.
But like the women who umpire the game, their experience does not match the glossy brochures and television promos that market it.
The most decorated Indigenous player in history, Adam Goodes, walked away from the code after three years of sustained booing. The AFL did too little, too late to address it. Goodes later refused inclusion in the Australian Football Hall of Fame and has had nothing to do with the AFL since.
Goodes is not alone. He stands amongst a growing number of non-white players whose grievances are well documented.
Collingwood FC commissioned the 'Do Better' review that documented a long history of structural racism at the club that 'set dangerous norms for public life'. Initially describing the release of the report as a 'historic and proud day for the club', then-President Eddie Maguire was later forced to resign.
One of the most positive selling-points the game has had during McLachlan's reign has been the birth of the AFL women's competition. While fifty-one per cent of the population qualify to play the women's game, it is by no means treated as one that is on-par with the men's game.
AFLW is held up in public as a jewel in the crown of the AFL kingdom but it is under-funded, under-supported, under-sold and sits with an assortment of other second or third tier responsibilities.
Meanwhile, controversy continues over the AFL's concussion policy and the science the game uses to support its position.
Many of these issues are not isolated to the game of Aussie rules. But few other sports celebrate their own successes quite like the AFL while at the same time being so blasé, to the point of being dismissive, about the volume of work that is yet to be done.
Could McLachlan's appointment signal a turning tide?
A scan of those who've been CEOs of the six summer Olympic organising committees from Sydney 2000 to Tokyo 2020 reveals an over-representation of bankers and politicians. Almost all have experience that extends beyond domestic shores.
Simon Balderstone was one of only a dozen people who worked at the Sydney organising committee from start to finish. He was General Manager of the Executive Office, working closely with all three SOCOG CEOs.
"The Olympic Games is a unique beast," Balderstone told The Ticket.
"There are more stakeholders in this than at a mass tree planting. This isn't a normal corporate situation."
Balderstone agrees with others that the Brisbane 2032 board and most senior staff will look very different by the time of the Games. He says putting on an Olympics is like raising a child.
"It's going to be very important to start the right way… the formative years are very important.
"The good news is Australia has this almost-unsurpassed array of talent and first-hand experience in this big event experience: the Sydney Games, two Commonwealth Games, other big trans-national events and also the London Olympics which was full of Australians running it.
"We've been incredibly influential as a country and a group of people in shaping the structures and operations of Olympic Games.
"I think it's lazy recruitment selection. It's the same old faces that come around and around and around again… they seem to bob up all the time."
His suggestion is to look 'far and wide'.
"You might as well start from that angle and not be parochial about it, but have a person of international experience if that's the right person to pick."
It's the biggest sports job on the planet and yet so unlike sport itself, where the idea of being first is supreme. When it comes to running the Olympics, it's the last person standing who wins.
