{"id":777848,"date":"2026-07-04T04:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/777848\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T04:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:38:12","slug":"blues-set-to-promote-from-within-for-new-aflw-head-of-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/777848\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues set to promote from within for new AFLW head of football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                Eleni Valos is set to take the helm as the Blues&#8217; AFLW head of football\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                            By Riley Beveridge and Gemma Bastiani\n                            <\/p>\n<p>                                Carlton players speak in a huddle during a practice match against Greater Western Sydney on August 2, 2025. Picture: Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>CARLTON is set to appoint Eleni Valos as its new AFLW head of football, promoting her from a position within the club&#8217;s VFL program.<\/p>\n<p>Valos has spent the last three seasons as the club&#8217;s VFL operations manager and wellbeing coordinator, but is now expected to win the role as its new women&#8217;s footy boss ahead of the season starting next month.<\/p>\n<p>Highly rated internally at Ikon Park, Valos has previously worked alongside Blues AFLW coach Mathew Buck during her time with the VFL program.<\/p>\n<p>She has also spent stints as Carlton&#8217;s women&#8217;s football operations and compliance manager, as well as its student engagement coordinator at the Carlton College of Sport.<\/p>\n<p>Valos is set to replace Ash Naulty in the role, after he departed in May before joining Adelaide as its new AFLW list manager.<\/p>\n<p>She will become the ninth new head of AFLW to be appointed across a busy off-season for clubs, with half of the competition making changes to key personnel in their women&#8217;s football programs.<\/p>\n<p>                    Ash Naulty during his time at Carlton. Picture: Carlton College of Sport<\/p>\n<p>Valos will join fellow new appointments Katrina Gill (Melbourne), Bree Brock (Adelaide), Rhys Harwood (North Melbourne), Erin Phillips (Gold Coast), Keegan Brooksby (Hawthorn), Jane Woodlands-Thompson (Richmond), Danielle Smith (Brisbane) and Daniel Merrett (Port Adelaide) in the footy boss ranks at AFLW level.<\/p>\n<p>Carlton has been tipped to challenge for AFLW success in 2026, having made a preliminary final last year before adding Gold Coast duo Lauren Bella and Claudia Whitfort as well as Adelaide&#8217;s Brooke Boileau during the Trade Period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eleni Valos is set to take the helm as the Blues&#8217; AFLW head of football By Riley Beveridge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85,83],"class_list":["post-777848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777848","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=777848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}