John Olsen’s hope for a lasting “legacy” as the Adelaide Football Club chairman is usually described in bricks-and-mortar terms, with the ongoing quest for a new home away from West Lakes.

But soon after the disappointment of being denied the former Brompton gas works site, Olsen is leading a new move to change the Crows – through constitutional reform.

InDaily has learned the Adelaide Football  Club is preparing changes to its much-debated constitution that includes term limits on current and future directors.

In principle, no-one would be able to sit on the Adelaide board for more than nine years. The exceptions would be a director serving for a tenth or eleventh year to complete a mandated term or if the board considers a director has an exceptional case to continue, say with a much-needed skill set.

Olsen confirmed to InDaily his board is debating how to implement term limits, 31 years after the Crows were formed with a director able to repeatedly go to the members for a new mandate or have a term extended by the chairman’s power to co-opt fellow directors.

Adelaide’s longest-serving director was former player Andrew Payze, a member of the club’s inaugural AFL squad in 1991. The son of a former SANFL president, the late Rod Payze, Andrew Payze served as a Crows director for a record 18 years from 2000 to 2017.

“We’re looking at term limits, it is under active consideration,” Olsen said. “It is good governance. It does not serve a club’s best interests to have directors on the board for 15, 20 years.”

One of the strongest critics of the Adelaide Football Club constitution, former federal senator Chris Schacht, told InDaily term limits would “lessen the image of the Crows being an ‘old boys’ club’ with directors looking after each other or their mates with seats on the board”.

Olsen confirmed the term limits would be retrospective, significantly influencing the aspirations of three current board members – premiership players Mark Ricciuto and, if re-elected, Rod Jameson and deputy chair Linda Fellows.

Ricciuto, the club’s football director, was co-opted to the Adelaide board in 2014. He has not stood for re-election by a members’ vote since but has had his tenure repeatedly extended by the board under the belief the Brownlow Medallist would command a landslide result at any ballot.

We’re looking at term limits, it is under active consideration

With the nine-year term limit, Ricciuto would have to vacate his seat in the boardroom in March next year. The Crows currently list next month as the expiry date to his term, so Ricciuto will need his mandate extended at the club’s annual meeting on March 1 – possibly to 2025 to overcome the full ramifications of a nine-year limit.

Ricciuto has publicly declared he does not want to leave the club’s leadership until the “job (of rebuilding the player list to be a premiership contender) is finished”. It is unlikely to be this season, when the Crows’ on-field rebuild will continue from the bottom 10 of the 18-club national league.

Jameson joined the board in 2015. Technically, by the proposed term limit, the premiership defender would if re-elected have to step aside after two more seasons in the boardroom. This would fall short by one year of his ambition to serve the club as director for at least a decade.

Fellows, a deputy police commissioner, has her latest term as a director expire in 2024 when she will have served nine years. This would end her aspirations to become the first female chairman at the Adelaide Football Club unless the board considered her leadership commanded an exemption to the term limit.

The other board members and their length of service are: John Olsen: chairman since 2020 and unlikely to serve more than four years; Shanti Berggren, who was co-opted to the board last year; commercial lawyer Stephen Roche, who was co-opted along with Berggren; former federal minister Kate Ellis who will be in her eighth year as a director when her current term expires in March 2024; Richard Fennell, director since 2017; winemaker Warren Randall, co-opted in 2020 and with his term expiring next year.

It does not serve a club’s best interests to have directors on the board for 15, 20 years

A year after leading a searching review of the club’s operations – with a KPMG report identifiying need for much change, particularly at executive level – Olsen has drawn from his experiences at the SA Football Commission chairman to reform the Adelaide Football Club constitution.

“Just before I left the commission,” said Olsen, who served as SANFL president for a decade until 2020, “we introduced term limits to the SANFL as part of good governance.”

Director term limits has been an agenda item for former Labor senator Chris Schacht, who has called for the change at every annual Crows members meeting for years and cites the constitution at AFL club Hawthorn as an ideal model for Adelaide to replicate.

“I brought this up as a governance issue several years ago and I am delighted to learn that John Olsen, as club chairman, wants to change the club constitution. It is not before time,” Schacht told InDaily. “I welcome term limits of nine years. It is the way for most publicly listed companies.”

Schacht’s attention remains on the constitution, however.

“My next question for John Olsen is; when will the constitution be changed to have the members elect the majority of the board?” he said.

“When will we be free of the AFL Commission vetting our choices for the board? Are we negotiating to claim back our licence from the AFL (after gaining independence from the SANFL in 2014)? We have certainly paid for it.”

Inaugural Crows chief executive and former chairman Bill Sanders also welcomed the proposed term limits.

“You can be on a board for too long,” Sanders told InDaily. “In my time, we had annual reviews of every board member to make sure everyone was still relevant to the club’s needs. But you also need good candidates to replace those who are serving the club on a voluntary basis.”

Adelaide has a record seven candidates. They are; Jameson seeking re-election, former newsreader Graeme Goodings, Statewide Super chief executive Tony D’Alessandro, lawyer Adrian Swale, real estate leader Oren Klemich, medico Daniel Byrne and businessman Fouad Andrawos.

Such a large field – described as “healthy” by Olsen – has turned the election into a lottery that is difficult to read. The unexpected opening of two board seats – rather than just one contest against Jameson – has led to more candidates. A run-off against a former player, a premiership hero such as Jameson, is considered a dead race.

The two vacancies the seven candidates are seeking to fill were created by Jameson’s term expiring and Nick Takos, the director elected by members’ vote last year, recently resigning after failing to vaccinate against COVID-19 as directed by club and AFL policy.

But the lack of a female candidate has raised the eyebrows of Schacht and Crows AFLW premiership captain Erin Phillips, who in her radio segments last week questioned why Adelaide’s 10-person board did not have at least half the seats filled by women. There are three female directors.

“I am very disappointed that no woman felt comfortable to put her name forward,” Schacht said. “We have, as a club, achieved great success in the AFLW. We have been leaders of change on and off the field. I agree with Erin Phillips that half the board should be women.

“We should also lead the way in changing the impression a group of Anglo-Saxon blokes run the world, in particular the football world. (AFLW premiership captain) Chelsea Randall would be a very suitable board member for the club when she retires as a player.”

Voting for the Adelaide board opened at 9am today (Monday, February 14). The electronic ballot closes at 5pm on Friday, February 25.

The candidate with the most votes will be elected with a two-year term; the other successful nominee will have a one-year mandate. The election results will be declared at the members’ meeting at Adelaide Oval on Tuesday, March 1.

Port Adelaide Football Club, which has no term limits with its board appointments and no wish to introduce them, is in the closing days of its election process to replace director and Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen, who resigned in December citing pressure on his time.

The candidates are former club football chief Ron Snowdon, Greyhound Racing SA board member Grantley Stevens and fan Greg Troughton.

The race appears between Snowdon and Stevens, who each carry the endorsements of former Port Adelaide captains. Snowdon is supported by Warren Tredrea and Dom Cassisi; Stevens had his nomination signed by Tim Ginever.

The election closes at 5pm on Wednesday. It has been heavily influenced by social media and digital forums, in particular by Port Adelaide fans questioning the candidates on their stance towards the club wearing its traditional black-and-white bars jumper in the AFL.

The same social media power is emerging with the Adelaide election, in particular for Goodings with his use of Twitter and Facebook to garner votes. “Social media is changing a lot of things,” Olsen said.