{"id":696703,"date":"2026-05-26T23:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696703\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:54:10","slug":"afl-news-2026-full-financial-toll-of-essendon-sacking-coaches-laid-bare-after-brad-scotts-exit-tim-roberts-own-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696703\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Full financial toll of Essendon sacking coaches laid bare after Brad Scott\u2019s exit, Tim Roberts own goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The financial toll of Essendon\u2019s calls to sack four contracted coaches has been laid bare by CODE Sports reporter Jon Ralph, who says the Bombers now also face a significant luxury tax bill for dismissing Brad Scott<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CODE Sports reported on Tuesday that Scott\u2019s exit would cost the Bombers a massive payout, given he was contracted until the end of 2027 in an extension given in March last year by former president Dave Barham and ex-CEO Craig Vozzo.<\/p>\n

Watch every match of every round of the AFL Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Essendon chief executive Tim Roberts conceded the void would present a \u201cchallenge\u201d, but said the club could manage it.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly it does impact the soft cap,\u201d Roberts told reporters during the presser.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked through that and we\u2019re confident we can still fully resource that footy department, both this year and next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s a challenge, but we\u2019re confident we can deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘I can see where the club is heading’ | 06:11<\/p>\n

Scott joins Matthew Knights, James Hird and Ben Rutten as Bombers coaches to be axed mid-contract in the past two decades.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Fox Footy\u2019s Midweek Tackle on Tuesday night, Ralph reported Essendon since 2010 had handed out around $5 million in payouts to sacked coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssendon is setting fire to a massive pile of cash \u2013 and they\u2019ve been doing it, let\u2019s face it, for the last 15 years,\u201d Ralph told Midweek Tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told you last month it\u2019s a full payout \u2013 that\u2019s what the club believed he deserved when they extended his contract \u2013 and so he\u2019s got five more months of this year\u2019s contract. It\u2019s probably something like $1.4 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that is $5 million in total since 2011 on coaches that are not coaching this football club: Two years of Matty Knights (2011 and 2012), two separate seasons for James Hird (2014 and 2016), a year for Ben Rutten (2023) and now Scott.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ralph also pointed to how the Bombers could be impacted by the AFL\u2019s new soft cap luxury tax rules, which were introduced in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you pay an extra $500,000 in the soft cap next year, you pay about $350,000 of tax. If you pay $1 million \u2013 which is his wage \u2013 then you pay about $750,000 in extra tax,\u201d Ralph said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll find ways of creative accountancy, they might (ask permission to) try and spread it over two years. But if they\u2019re paying all of that money next year, that\u2019s an extra $750,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is $1.7 million for Brad Scott not to coach your club when you didn\u2019t need to extend his contract in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s exit comes just over one week after Roberts spoke with 7News Melbourne. When asked if he could guarantee Scott would still be Essendon\u2019s coach in Round 1 next year, Roberts said: \u201cYeah, look, Brad is part of this strategy, right? He\u2019s totally aligned. Where I sit, absolutely Brad Scott\u2019s going to be our coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ralph reported on Tuesday night the Bombers \u201cI think a couple of weeks back decided they were going to sack him (Scott)\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was going to be a process that would probably last through until the bye. And I think as the losses built up, they couldn\u2019t find any reason why they wouldn\u2019t continue him on until those two games against West Coast and Carlton,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ralph labelled Roberts\u2019 comments during the Channel 7 interview as \u201cthe greatest own goal of all-time\u201d.<\/p>\n

‘Not in consideration at all | 23:13<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it shocked a lot of people close to him (Roberts) that he actually did it. I think he was advised by some people: \u2018If you\u2019ve got nothing nice to say, you say absolutely nothing,\u2019\u2019 Ralph said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a half-hour interview with Channel 7, they broke it up into three short grabs about the coach, which they put together. That\u2019s exactly what they were going to do and they did absolutely nothing wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo then the first comments we have ever heard uttered from Tim Roberts, their new CEO, are something that were at least a white lie, maybe an outright lie. He knew at that stage they were going to move him (Scott) on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seemed like a catastrophic own goal for what positive? When none of the Essendon fans, at that stage, thought that was going to calm the farm or put those detractors at bay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The financial toll of Essendon\u2019s calls to sack four contracted coaches has been laid bare by CODE Sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,36846,107267,64,63,55,639,146722,3423,696,339630,339629,81563,48055,339634,339631,1119,54883,48340,681,297167,339632,339635,339636,339633,40512,85,131222],"class_list":["post-696703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-andrew-mcgrath","tag-andrew-welsh","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ben-rutten","tag-ben-waterworth","tag-brad-scott","tag-cap-luxury-tax","tag-contracted-coaches","tag-craig-vozzo","tag-dave-barham","tag-dons","tag-financial-toll","tag-football-club","tag-footy-department","tag-james-hird","tag-jon-ralph","tag-luxury-tax","tag-luxury-tax-rules","tag-massive-pile","tag-sacking-coaches","tag-set-fire","tag-soft-cap","tag-sports","tag-tim-roberts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696703","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=696703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}