{"id":885650,"date":"2026-09-09T12:18:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885650\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:18:23","slug":"caught-me-by-surprise-mcqualters-contract-reality-ahead-of-2027-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885650\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Caught me by surprise\u2019: McQualter\u2019s contract reality ahead of 2027 revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Coast head coach Andrew McQualter will begin the 2027 AFL season without any contract guarantees beyond next year, it has been revealed. <\/p>\n

The Eagle is one of five coaches with only 12 months currently remaining on their deal, while Fremantle\u2019s Justin Longmuir continues to be on a unique \u201congoing employment agreement\u201d<\/a> which has no definitive end date.<\/p>\n

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With one year remaining on McQualter\u2019s initial coaching deal, Midweek Tackle\u2019s Corbin Middlemas spoke to the level of uncertainty the Eagles coach will head into his third season with.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew McQualter will coach into next year off-season. He\u2019ll coach into 2027 without a guarantee beyond that,\u201d Middlemas revealed on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis caught me a little bit by surprise; firstly that it was a three-year deal, and not a four-year deal to begin with. He\u2019s had two seasons there; they went one win in their first year, and four in his second season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climate around West Coast is actually pretty hot, on every single level. There\u2019s pressure on the board (with) new members that have come onto that.\u201d<\/p>\n

McQualter, who played 94 AFL games across St Kilda and Gold Coast, was appointed at the helm in September of 2024, replacing premiership coach Adam Simpson after his departure in July of that year.<\/p>\n

10 AFL teams ready to bounce back! | 07:14<\/p>\n

After finishing four games and percentage last on the ladder in 2025, the Eagles looked to be on the improve and developing young talent at a good rate \u2014 a focus that new board members are hellbent on staying a priority. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey want a particular focus on football, and they want that to be reinforced \u2014 that the focus here should be on getting the senior team to perform better, rather than other areas of the business,\u201d Middlemas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon Pyke is obviously a chief executive who comes from a football background, not an administration background. John Worsfold is part of football department now, and now we\u2019ve got Andrew McQualter here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel like in the stage to be spiking up the table, and so it means it\u2019s a really difficult one to judge how they grade next year. What does success look like?<\/p>\n

\u201cI mention the pressure that\u2019s coming on the football club, the fact that they feel like it\u2019s time to start winning. The Eagles have historically been a ruthless football club … McQualter, seemingly, in the first 10-12 weeks next year is going to be performing for his job as a senior coach.<\/p>\n

Jon Ralph added: \u201cIt\u2019s a big story. He started as far back as any club in regard to the depth of his list build.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast head coach Andrew McQualter will begin the 2027 AFL season without any contract guarantees beyond next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-885650","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\/885650","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=885650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}