Dear Members,

Happy match day! I hope you’re looking forward to this evening’s clash against Adelaide as much as I am.

Having reached the mid-way point of our 2025 AFL Season, it seems an appropriate time to update you on things happening around our club. 

This year, we’ve had the joy of taking the Premiership Cup on a national tour, visiting a large number of schools, community football clubs and other functions across the Country. To see what the Premiership win means to so many members and fans time and time again has been truly wonderful.

For those Members attending our pre match function, I look forward to seeing you there, and yes, we will have the Cup with us again.

This will be our fourth members function on the road this year following events in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart. It has been great to meet so many of you and see how our club is developing a national footprint.

Resignation of our CEO, Greg Swann

Earlier this week, after nearly 11 years with the club, our CEO Greg Swann informed the Board of his decision to take up a role with the AFL as Executive General Manager, Football Performance. 

Greg has been CEO at Collingwood, Carlton and the Lions for the past 26 years, and his experience and network will be a great asset to the League into the future. 

When Greg became our CEO role in 2014 the Club was at a low ebb.  At the time, I don’t think anyone could have imagined just how successful the period since then might ultimately turn out to be.  During Greg’s tenure the significant achievements for the Club include:

• Established Brighton Homes Arena as our new Training and Administration Centre, as well as a venue for home matches for our AFLW and VFL sides
• Largely retired the significant debt that had accrued prior to Greg’s arrival
• Established one of the competitions foundation AFLW sides, who have won two premierships and been one of the most successful teams in the AFLW competition
• Greg recommended to the Board the appointment of Chris Fagan as AFL coach
• Played in each AFL finals series since 2019, played in the last two grand finals and won the 2024 premiership.

While Greg will be the first to acknowledge that many others have also contributed to these achievements, Greg’s leadership since 2014 has certainly been a significant ingredient.  From his calm manner in a crisis, to his cheeky humour, to his constant determination to make the club better, Greg has been crucial to the club’s turnaround and renewed success.

On a personal level, Greg has been a pleasure to work with and his experience and strong relationships within the industry were a great help to me, particularly in my initial years as Chair. I, like the rest of the Lions family, feel blessed to have Greg as a colleague and friend. 

Greg’s wife Leonie has also been a big part of our club and many a young recruit have benefitted from Leonies kindness, and her culinary skills to whip up a home cooked meal!

Greg will finish up with the club following the Round 19 fixture against the Western Bulldogs at the Gabba.

On behalf of the wider Lions family, we wish Greg and Leonie all the best with this next stage in their lives.  We know Greg will have the same positive impact on the code that he has had at the Lions. 

Appointment of Sam Graham as our new CEO

Following Greg’s announcement, the Board have appointed Lions Chief Operating Officer, Sam Graham as the club’s new Chief Executive Officer.  Sam came to the club in 2023 with a view to gaining experience that would allow him to become a club CEO, so it is pleasing that plan has come to fruition and the Board were able to move so quickly to have a new CEO in place.

Sam has close to 20 years’ experience in the AFL industry and has previously been a member of the AFL Executive Team as EGM Strategy, Chief Executive of AFL NSW/ACT, and more recently the General Manager Taskforce and Industry Engagement, Tasmania, playing a key role in the establishment of the 19th license in Tasmania.

As our Chief Operating Officer, for more than 18 months now, he has demonstrated his strong capabilities and built strong relationships within the club and with our key stakeholders.

Stadium News 

The Queensland Government announcement of plans to build a new stadium in Victoria Park is exciting news for Lions fans.  As much as we love the Gabba, we are fast outgrowing it and by the time 2032 rolls around it will be well and truly nearing the end of it’s life. 

This is one of the most significant developments for the Club in recent years.  It removes the uncertainty of being displaced for an extended period of time and provides us with a future home that will be a fantastic asset for Queenslanders to enjoy AFL, Cricket and other entertainment such as world class concerts.

Our Lions executives, including Greg Swann and Sam Graham did an incredible job working with the AFL, Cricket and other stakeholders to present a compelling submission to the Governments infrastructure committee. 

There is now a lot of work to be done to ensure the finished product is of the quality Queenslanders deserve, and we will continue to keep you informed of the development process as we learn more.

AFL Update 

Beginning the year as reigning premier was a new challenge for our AFL team, but they have handled that challenge incredibly well. While we have played some great football at times, and not so great football at other times, sitting on nine wins from twelve games in second place on the ladder is an encouraging start to our premiership defence.

Levi Ashcroft has hit the ground running as a first-year player and shown why he was drafted at pick 5. We have also seen debuts for Will McLachlan, Sam Marshall and tonight, Sunshine Coast product and Youi Academy draftee, Ty Gallop will make his AFL debut against the Crows.

If we can build on that form for the second half of the year it may well be good enough for us to experience finals football again, and that gives us the opportunity to push as far as we can into September.  

We have some great games to get along to at the Gabba in the second half of the year, including fixtures against GWS, Port Adelaide, Sydney, the Bulldogs and the Hawks, there is plenty of footy for the Lions fans to look forward to at the Gabba.

AFLW Returns

The AFLW squad returned to formal training recently and they have hit the ground running. As we have come to expect, many of the squad have been into Brighton Homes Arena on a regular basis resulting in some fantastic results from the group’s annual 2k time trial. 

As with the last season, the list remains largely intact with Bre Koenen set to lead the group for another year. It’s our tenth season of AFLW and the club is looking forward to playing it’s 100^th match in the competition. Our experienced players, Ally Anderson, Shannon Campbell and Bre Koenen are closing in on 100 game milestones, which is a fantastic achievement for each of them.

The AFLW fixture, released last week, has six home games scheduled at Brighton Homes Arena against Hawthorn, Carlton, North Melbourne, Richmond, Port Adelaide and Melbourne. We are hoping to pack out Brighton Homes Arena each and every week so get behind our girls as they look for premiership redemption.  

VFL

Our VFL team has also enjoyed another strong start to the season, winning six of their eight games and providing the match committee with plenty of selection headaches each week. An after the siren victory against the Pies in Round 4 was a highlight in front of the Brighton Homes Arena faithful. 

Membership

Following the club’s Premiership success in 2024, I am pleased to announce we have recorded our eighth consecutive years of membership growth, with us now having more than 64,000 members.

With another four home games at the Gabba and the AFLW season commencing we will continue to push for the 70,000-member goal we set at the start of the season. 

Gabba Crowds

To our Lions members and supporters, we are very pleased with, and grateful for, the support we continue to receive from our fans. With record crowds so far this year and our average home crowds over 30,000 and our membership continuing to grow, we can’t thank our members enough for their loyalty.    

Once again, thank you to all of our members for your support. The support we continue to enjoy both at the Gabba and the games we play around the country is much appreciated. We will be doing everything we can to continue our success through the second half of the season and participate in the finals series with some momentum behind us.  

I look forward to seeing you at the footy.  Go Lions!