Dear Members and Supporters,

No doubt you have all been following the developments unfolding over the last few days with interest and, I’m sure, frustration.

Today our former director of coaching and strategy Alan Richardson was announced as the new senior coach of the St Kilda Football Club.

This has been a frantic 48 hours, so let me take you through the process of how this has unfolded.

On Tuesday afternoon, Alan, through the club, issued a statement stating he would not seek an interview for the St Kilda senior coaching position and was firmly committed to our football club.

Late that night, Alan contacted Ken Hinkley to inform him that negotiations undertaken by his manager and the Saints had reached a point where they were prepared to consider interviewing him for their coaching role.

Both contacted me to advise of the sudden development and Alan subsequently flew to Melbourne to finalise the process on Wednesday. This afternoon, St Kilda announced Alan’s appointment at their club, and they’ve got a good man.

We have always prided ourselves on being able to attract and develop good football professionals. I note that the three main candidates for the St Kilda role in Richardson, Williams and Kingsley have all coached our football club in the past five years.

Ultimately, we could not give Alan the prize he wanted and it is unsurprising to all that he should pursue the opportunity the Saints offered him.

This whole process has raised a number of concerns that I want to address for you in this letter:
- Why has our club been impacted by this process and what can be done to stop it in the future?
- What is at risk with a coach deeply embedded in our strategic planning joining a rival club?
- How do we go about replacing Richardson in that role?

Industry coaching appointment processes
There is no denying, we have had our program significantly disrupted by this sudden series of events. St Kilda’s decision to overhaul its coaching panel on the eve of pre-season now means our own preparations have been set back and we now lack an important resource in our football department. Our players commence pre-season training on Monday and we will shortly depart for our training camp in Dubai.

Accordingly, we took a stance today with St Kilda and have submitted an agenda item for next week’s league chief executives’ conference, which will hopefully put in motion new protocols around the appointment of coaching personnel in the future.

To St Kilda’s credit they have acknowledged the difficulties caused by their late start to the process, and we have resolved to move on.

Intellectual Property
Alan is obviously very aware of our football strategy for next year. Every employee of our football club is bound by a confidentiality contract when they depart our organisation, but how can you ‘unknow’ what you know? I have discussed this at length with both Alan and St Kilda’s CEO Michael Nettlefold with whom I have a good relationship, and both have undertaken in good faith that knowledge he has of Port Adelaide will not be used to the advantage of their club, or the detriment of ours. There is little more that we can do on this front, acknowledging that in a small specialised industry such as ours this sort of information gets shared around a lot. The next draft is our primary area of concern and we are very confident that everyone concerned will do the right thing.

Where to from here?
We have already moved on this. Kenny has already changed his focus to how we can get the most out of our boys in 2014 and we are well into the process even now of determining what our exact needs are for 2014. Ken is now one year into his role and we have added enormous experience through Phil Walsh. Our coaching group is in excellent shape, and we think our needs have shifted slightly from this time last year. We are starting to engage, and be engaged by prospective candidates for what is an exceptional industry opportunity at Port Adelaide.

Big picture
This is a small speed hump on our journey towards our next premiership. Alan has served this club well for the last 13 months and has been a significant contributor to our reinvigorated football program and the development of our young leaders. But he was just one person in our organisation.

We Are Port Adelaide and we are smashing it in every aspect of our operations before the start of the pre-season. Here are some key developments that have taken place since my last update:

- Aaron Greaves and Marcus Drum joined the club as our new development coach and player welfare development manager and will work closely with our players next year.

- We have just re-signed two popular young Magpies players to our SANFL list for next year who will work closely with Buddha Hocking in getting the Maggies back to the top. If you see Sam Gray or Bobby Raikiwasa around the club make sure you say hello and congratulate them on signing on. We will make a few more player announcements shortly.

- Jacob Surjan has been promoted to take control of our Academy team for 2014. We all love ‘Surj’ and his passion for our footy club and this is a very well deserved appointment for him. Congratulations mate!

- We’re selling memberships like hotcakes! Over 80% of our Black Diamond and Platinum memberships have been sold for 2014, and we’ve already sold more reserved seats than we did for the entirety of last year! I was also impressed to hear of one passionate supporter in Paris who took out a Platinum membership simply to guarantee his place at the very first game in Round 2!

- Our corporate sales team has been getting its own runs on the board. Only two open-air corporate boxes remain in the Western Stand and they’re selling quickly in the Eastern Stand too!

- We’ve also had a number of our partners sign on. At the premier level Envestra and Rivergum Homes will continue on with us next year, while ROH Wheels and Australian Outdoor Living will continue at principal level.

- Our Ultimate Honour Board has cracked 2700 names and the number is still climbing. Make sure you get your name on the wall of our new players’ race at Adelaide Oval and support the club in the process at pafchonourboard.com.au.

- Finally, Adelaide Oval just looks terrific. I’ve been there for meetings with the Stadium Management Authority throughout the entire build process and it is simply a spectacular arena for our city. I can’t express how good this is going to be for our players, our supporters and our whole community next year. All I can really say is that you don’t want to miss this! Give our fantastic member services team a call on 1300 467 232 or get on the website at weareportadelaide.com.au and jump on board next year!

Well that just about wraps it up for a lengthy update, but one that I hope helps you feel a little more comfortable as we approach our pre-season kick off.

Good luck to all of our players with their time trial on Monday morning and to all the new boys starting off with us this month. It’s going to be a big summer for Port Adelaide and we can’t wait to get into it!

Catch you soon,
KT