Politicians and footy legends continue to weigh in on the CEO debacle engulfing Essendon – with more questions emerging around the process that saw him appointed as the club’s boss.
Andrew Thorburn, 57, was announced as the Bombers new CEO on Monday, but his role at a controversial church that has compared abortion to the Holocaust drew wide condemnation. By Tuesday evening, he was already gone.
It has sparked a widespread debate across not only the footy world, but discussion amongst regular Aussies as to whether religious views, no matter how controversial, should have precluded him from the role.
Delving deeper into the matter though, there are several other red flags with Essendon’s process and decision to appoint Thorburn – and club greats Matthew Lloyd and Tim Watson labelled the situation ’embarrassing’.
Andrew Thorburn has stepped down as the CEO of Essendon after just one day after the club faced a wave of criticism for his religious views
To start with, Thorburn, a former boss of Big 4 bank NAB, was actually in charge of finding a new CEO for Essendon – before he himself was appointed to the role.
The 57-year-old had been leading the Bombers review of the football department, which included the search for a new CEO after Xavier Campbell resigned last month.
In a letter to members in August, president David Barham wrote that Thorburn had been engaged to ‘drive the broader external cub review’, which, among other things, involved ‘the appointment of a new CEO’.
He even interviewed other candidates for the role, according to the Financial Review, before stepping away from that portion of the review when it became clear he may have been one himself.
Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd (left, pictured with wife Lisa) couldn’t believe Thorburn was on a panel to select a CEO – a position he later filled himself
It was a point not lost on Lloyd, the club’s greatest-ever goalkicker.
‘He was part of the panel to select the CEO. I never like it when the person who is helping to find the CEO becomes it themselves, I don’t like that part of it too much,’ he said on SEN on Wednesday morning.
Watson had previously waxed lyrical about Thorburn’s ‘great leadership qualities’, but backtracked after the controversy.
‘I had no idea about his background and his beliefs and all those other associated things, in fact I had no idea about his NAB background which I’ve read more about,’ he said when talking on SEN alongside Lloyd.
‘Clearly the process wasn’t rigorous enough and it wasn’t robust enough and the due diligence that needed to be applied to it wasn’t there.’
Former Essendon great-turned-commentator Tim Watson (left, pictured with weather presenter Jane Bunn) has also slammed the club for the turn of events
High-profile footy identity Paul Little, who was chairman of Essendon during the turbulent supplements scandal period, also expressed his concern with the process.
‘That appears outwardly to be a conflict … In this situation the feeling seems to be that clarity, that level of engagement, that should have been there but wasn’t,’ Little told News Corp on Wednesday.
Thorburn’s Christian beliefs have been the main source of consternation, though. with high-profile fans and pundits, particularly those who are members of the LGBTQI+ community, ripping into the club as soon as his appointment was announced.
Thorburn is chairman of City on a Hill, a church that condemns homosexuality and has an article on its website from 2013 titled ‘Surviving Same Sex Attraction as a Christian’.
‘If you struggle with same-sex attraction, it is vital to speak to a mature Christian whom you trust, so you can receive the support and accountability you will need in the long term to survive these temptations,’ the article reads.
The City on a Hill Church has several locations in Victoria and has published hard-line views on abortion and homosexuality online
Another sermon published in 2013, but still on the church’s website this week, compared the ‘freedom’ of abortion to the Jewish holocaust.
‘Today we look back at [with] sadness and disgust over concentration camps, future generations will look back with sadness at the legal murder of hundreds of thousands human beings every day through medicine.’
It quickly became clear, after a swift backlash, those views would not align with a footy club – particularly one that features queer AFLW players.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, pictured with wife Catherine, criticised Essendon, who he supports as a fan, for their choice of CEO
Port Phillip Deputy Mayor Tim Baxter was one of many Essendon fans renouncing the club on Tuesday.
‘I urge anyone who cares about queer rights to resign also,’ Baxter wrote on Twitter.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also labelled the church’s views ‘absolutely appalling’ but did admit he would continue to support Essendon and renew his membership.
‘That kind of intolerance, that kind of hatred, bigotry. It’s just wrong,’ Andrews told reporters on Tuesday.
‘I hope we (Essendon) can get ourselves on the back page of the paper a bit more often than we’re on the front page.’
Shadow premier Matthew Guy rebuked Andrews for his comments on the Essendon situation, saying it was none of a politician’s business who an AFL club hired and fired
Andrews came in for a stern rebuke from the state shadow premier, Matthew Guy, however, who insisted it really wasn’t his business.
‘What, are we now banning people from going to church, banning people from going to a synagogue, banning people from going to a mosque? This is ridiculous,’ Guy said on 3AW.
‘Football clubs can hire who they choose. I don’t see, if I was the premier, why I would be telling people who they can hire and fire; why would you?’
That being said, the Bombers are also facing criticism for the fact that his views were pretty widely known.
So, why did they appoint him? Knowing full well a strong backlash would follow from both sides of the coin, be they church or LGBTQI+ supporters.
‘I really feel that information (which) was out there was easily accessible and so for it to have been missed, part of their DD (due diligence), I find that unusual,’ Little said, in a strong rebuke of his former club, who he maintains were far better off under the previous leadership of Campbell and chairman Paul Brasher.
‘He (Thorburn) wasn’t new to the club. He was well known to the club. He had a number of roles there. I don’t think it should have come as a surprise.’
Unfortunately for Essendon fans, these two questionable parts of the process still aren’t the only thing wrong with the whole debacle.
Essendon president David Barham has come under-fire for his role in the flawed processes which appointed Thorburn as CEO
In a letter to Bombers members on Monday, Barham described Thorburn’s appointment as ‘a significant step forward for the club’.
‘To my knowledge, no other AFL club has ever secured the services of an ASX-listed top 10 company CEO,’ Barham wrote, clearly pleased with himself over the appointment.
‘In Andrew, we have secured a highly credentialed leader, with a proven track record in development and building the leadership capabilities of his people.’
Parts of his prior work history suggest that is not an entirely accurate picture.
Thorburn was NAB chief executive from 2014 until 2019, when he resigned during the banking royal commission after coming in for scathing criticism for his role in the organisation’s ‘rotten culture’.
Essendon new CEO Andrew Thorburn stepped down a day after being appointed after being given the choice between his new role and his church position
The Royal Commission investigated, among other things, the ‘fee-for-no-service’ scandal in which NAB, along with other banks, were found to have collected fees from dead customers and living ones who received no services.
Other banks were implicated, but the commissioner Kenneth Hayne saved his worst criticism for Thorburn.
‘I thought it telling that Mr Thorburn treated all issues of fees for no service as nothing more than carelessness combined with system deficiencies when the total amount to be repaid by NAB and NULIS on this account is likely to be more than $100 million,’ a scathing Hayne said in 2019.
‘Mr Thorburn sought to assert that no one knew this was happening. The money just kept “falling into NAB’s pocket”.
‘NAB also stands apart from the other three major banks. Having heard from both the CEO, Mr Thorburn, and the chair (Dr Ken Henry)… I was not persuaded that NAB is willing to accept the necessary responsibility for deciding, for itself, what is the right thing to do, and then having its staff act accordingly,’ said Hayne.
David Thorburn gave an interview about his appointment, and slammed the criticism of his religious beliefs
For his part, Thorburn was fuming about his treatment, saying: ‘It became clear to me that my personal Christian faith is not tolerated or permitted in the public square.’
‘People should be able to hold different views on complex personal and moral matters, and be able to live and work together, even with those differences, and always with respect.’
Essendon gave him a choice between the CEO role and his church, and obviously, he stuck to his principles and chose City on a Hill.
‘The Board made clear that, despite these not being views that Andrew Thorburn has expressed personally and that were also made prior to him taking up his role as Chairman, he couldn’t continue to serve in his dual roles at the Essendon Football Club and as Chairman of City on the Hill,’ said a statement by the club.
‘The Board respects Andrew’s decision.
‘We are deeply committed to our values and support wholeheartedly the work of the AFL in continuing to stamp out any discrimination based on race, sex, religion, gender, sexual identity or orientation, or physical or mental disability.’
A smiling David Barham (right) announces the club’s new coach, Brad Scott (left) just days before the a new CEO ignited a storm of controversy
So, to sum up, in a six week period Essendon has sacked its senior coach (Ben Rutten), football director (Sean Wellman), president (Brasher) and TWO chief executive officers (Campbell, Thorburn).
Just after the club had finally begun to put the supplements cheating scandal behind them.
Rough times for Bombers supporters, with the club now up to 6,605 days without winning a final – and it seems as far away as ever.