{"id":262,"date":"2026-04-28T14:58:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/262\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:58:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:58:28","slug":"afl-2026-garry-lyon-intel-on-paul-guerra-sacking-video-melbourne-demons-new-ceo-hire-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/262\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL 2026: Garry Lyon intel on Paul Guerra sacking, video, Melbourne Demons new CEO hire, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne is set to announce its next chief executive officer as soon as Wednesday, with sacked boss Paul Guerra<\/a> breaking his silence on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n

Guerra, who was reportedly \u201ccompletely blindsided\u201d by the board\u2019s decision, was just seven months into the role<\/a> before being given his marching orders. <\/p>\n

Watch every match of every round of the AFL Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It marks the fifth Melbourne leadership departure in the past 18 months, with Guerra joining Gary Pert, Simon Goodwin, Brad Green and Kate Roffey in leaving recently. <\/p>\n

Demons great and former captain Garry Lyon shared his intel on the situation on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a shocking surprise to me,\u201d Lyon began on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your footy club is 5-2 against all odds and expectations, and things appear, on the surface, to be going well on-field \u2014 I guess you never know what\u2019s going on off-field. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s swift, and it\u2019s decisive \u2026 there was a general, I\u2019m told, loss of confidence in Paul. There was a genuine breakdown with the board, and in the end, it was a unanimous board decision. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, it was suggested that it wasn\u2019t the right fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyon then revealed the timeline for Melbourne\u2019s next CEO appointment. <\/p>\n

\u201c(Cook) will take the reins for, I believe, three or four months in the interim, until such time as the new CEO is appointed,\u201d Lyon said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as I sit here tonight, I understand that will be as early as tomorrow. They have someone in their sights. <\/p>\n

\u201cBrian Cook will hold that role whilst this person that they\u2019re going to appoint clears the decks from whatever role they are involved in. Decisive and swift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyon speaks after indigenous comments | 01:32<\/p>\n

Co-host Gerard Whateley shared what he knew about the situation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe suggestion is that he went against board instructions on numerous occasions,\u201d Whateley said of Guerra. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe would stray into areas, publicly and privately, that he was not only not authorised, but he had been instructed not to. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that the work, to the board\u2019s view, wasn\u2019t satisfactory, and it wasn\u2019t comprehensive, and then in there, whether there\u2019s a clash of personalities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the evening, Guerra broke his silence on the board\u2019s decision to relieve him of his duties. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging day \u2026 I\u2019m puzzled by the decision made by the board today. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of the team that we\u2019ve put together in a really short period of time, and I\u2019m really proud of the role that I\u2019ve played in the success of the club. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have engaged lawyers, and there\u2019s not much more I can say at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midweek Tackle\u2019s Scott Gullan said on Tuesday night that a payout of \u201cup to $500,000\u201d is coming Guerra\u2019s way. <\/p>\n

ARC powers reduced after controversy | 02:18<\/p>\n

Seven\u2019s Tom Morris reported on Tuesday night that players and staff were \u201cin the dark\u201d as to why Guerra was dismissed, adding: \u201cWhen quizzed at a players meeting today, president Steven Smith was unable to provide a clear answer. <\/p>\n

\u201cGuerra was completely blindsided, having lost the support of Smith and his directors in recent times, with breakdowns in relationships leading to the board\u2019s unanimous decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyon added: \u201cUnless you\u2019re on the inside, you can\u2019t purport to understand exactly the reasoning behind all that, other than they are real. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been decisive, it\u2019s been unanimous, and a decision has been made really swiftly. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve made decisions recently that have caught a lot of people by surprise, but the strength of their convictions has seen Simon Goodwin depart, and what appears to have been a really good decision made in (appointing) Steven King. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re backing themselves in to have made a similarly good decision here. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, if your board unanimously agrees that this is not the right path to go, then you pull the bandaid off quickly, and you move on, and that\u2019s what\u2019s happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n

On-field, Melbourne looks to continue its hot start to the year when it travels to face a daunting Sydney side on Sunday afternoon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne is set to announce its next chief executive officer as soon as Wednesday, with sacked boss Paul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[567,23,133,582,575,579,569,565,562,571,580,520,530,368,573,564,566,583,572,260,262,120,563,376,570,397,577,568,576,581,578,574,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-melbourne","8":"tag-arc-powers","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","11":"tag-board-instructions","12":"tag-brad-green","13":"tag-brian-cook","14":"tag-ceo-paul","15":"tag-chief-executive","16":"tag-cricket-ground","17":"tag-football-club","18":"tag-footy-club","19":"tag-garry-lyon","20":"tag-gerard-whateley","21":"tag-getty-images-inc","22":"tag-goal-line-decisions","23":"tag-jack-jovanovski","24":"tag-kate-roffey","25":"tag-leadership-departure","26":"tag-marching-orders","27":"tag-melbourne","28":"tag-melbourne-demons","29":"tag-oceania","30":"tag-paul-guerra","31":"tag-press-conference","32":"tag-ross-lyon","33":"tag-scott-gullan","34":"tag-simon-goodwin","35":"tag-st-kilda","36":"tag-steven-king","37":"tag-steven-smith","38":"tag-tom-morris","39":"tag-unanimous-board-decision","40":"tag-victoria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}