AFL Statement - Passing of Lou Richards

AFL Chief Executive Officer Gillon McLachlan today said that the modern AFL competition owed a huge debt of thanks to the late Lou Richards.

Richards, 94, died in Melbourne today after a career on and off the field that, along with Ted Whitten and Ron Barassi, ranked him as one of the largest figures in the game across multiple decades.

A member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame for his playing feats across a 250-game career for Collingwood, including captaining the 1953 Magpies’ premiership side, Richards found further greater fame at the forefront of the game’s growth in the media.

Richards was a newspaper columnist, radio caller and expert and, most particularly, a star in the emerging medium of television as both host and match-day caller.

Working alongside the late Bob Davis and the late Jack Dyer, Richards revolutionised the coverage of the VFL and future AFL by re-defining game-day as entertainment as well as sports commentating, and paved the way for the growth of the sport.

“The AFL, our players and our clubs all benefit from the massive interest in our game around the country that is driven by media companies, and their desire to report every happening to our fans, along with trying to entertain them at the same time,” Mr McLachlan said.

“Lou Richards was the original driving force of the media’s expanding interest in our game, particularly with the emergence of television from the late 1950s, and his time as a host and match-caller for the Seven Network developed a style that has often been copied but never bettered.

“Everyone in our industry, who is fortunate to earn a living around the game we love, has the likes of Lou Richards to thank for his work ethic, his love of the game, his willingness to both poke fun at himself and others and his one-off originality.

“As a player, he captained his club to a premiership – an honour that every player would cherish in a heartbeat – and was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame and the Collingwood Hall of Fame.

“We express our sincere condolences to his family, many many friends and all those who were touched by a great Australian life,” he said.