{"id":484922,"date":"2026-02-17T03:35:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484922\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T03:35:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:35:24","slug":"christian-welch-lands-off-field-role-with-afl-club-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/484922\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Welch lands off-field role with AFL club – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Melbourne Storm<\/a> premiership winner Christian Welch<\/a> has joined the Collingwood Magpies as a business analyst.<\/p>\n

Welch, who has often been regarded for his off-field smarts, has a commerce degree and an MBA, studying at Harvard, Berlin & Oxford. During his time in the game, he was on the RLPA’s board, and played a big part in negotiating the current collective bargaining agreements used across the NRL<\/a> and NRLW<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old was forced into retirement last year after suffering multiple head knocks, having played 163 NRL<\/a> games across ten seasons, where he also played for Queensland at State of Origin<\/a> level.<\/p>\n

Noted for his on-field toughness in the middle third, Welch will now take his off-field experience to AFL<\/a>, telling Zero Tackle he wanted to get outside of the rugby league bubble for his next commitment.<\/p>\n

“I really admire Collingwood as a club and the AFL<\/a> in how they operate,” Welch told us.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to get outside the rugby league bubble for a while & challenge myself to learn and develop. Not sure what the future holds, Collingwood HQ is literally next door to the Storm, so I’ll continue to have a close relationship there.<\/p>\n

“It’s a privilege to be at one of the best sporting organisations in Australia<\/a>, so it’s just be a sponge and work hard to help contribute.”<\/p>\n

Welch, who also has regularly appeared on the ABC to chat about issues surrounding the game, is not the first NRL<\/a> name to join the AFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ryan Hoffman<\/a>, who is another former Storm player and will host Zero Tackle’s new show The Boardroom in 2026 alongside Chad Townsend<\/a>, is currently working with the Melbourne Demons as a leadership consultant, while Billy Slater<\/a> also worked with St Kilda in 2019.<\/p>\n

The Melbourne Storm<\/a> have also gone to the AFL<\/a> for talent, with Geelong champion Joel Selwood working with the Melbourne Storm<\/a> during 2023.<\/p>\n

Get set for the footy with the FREE Zero Tackle 2026 NRL Season Guide!<\/a> Packed with 130+ pages of player profiles, team previews, insights and analysis, the 2026 NRL Season Guide<\/a> is built for fans who want the full picture. Download your free Season Guide HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Melbourne Storm premiership winner Christian Welch has joined the Collingwood Magpies as a business analyst. Welch, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-484922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}