Eddie McGuire has resigned from the presidency of the Collingwood Football Club effectively immediately, after pressure from the wider community around systemic racism at the club.
As reported by The Age ahead of the club’s press conference at the Holden Centre on Tuesday afternoon, McGuire confirmed he would be leaving the club ahead of his final season as club president.
He has been the club president for 22 years, and in late 2020 announced the 2021 season would be his last, and he would leave the club at the close of Collingwood’s season.
After the ‘Do Better’ report was delivered to the Collingwood, and then leaked to the media, McGuire declared it was a “proud and historic day”, which faced immediate backlash. Pressure from the wider football community called for McGuire to step down effective immediately due to his incapability to handle and quash the systemic racism within his club.
In the press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Eddie McGuire said that he would take some time away now that he has resigned.
He also spent time thanking club staff and board members, and spent a good five minutes going through the club’s initiatives – like its fundraising for homelessness, LGBTQIA Pink Magpies coterie group, and diverse moard members – as a prop to declare again that Collingwood is “not a racist club”.
Collingwood Football Club has not yet announced who will replace him as club president.
