FORMER tennis star and high-profile sports administrator Paul McNamee is no longer the chief executive of the Melbourne Football Club.

McNamee had spent four months in the job.

McNamee said on Wednesday he was disappointed that the new board, headed by former Demons champion Jim Stynes, had decided he was not the right man to run the AFL's oldest club.

"We had some pretty bold plans and with the new team coming in – they are going in a different direction. They didn't want me to be a part of that direction so you move on. But it's disappointing because I haven't been there that long," McNamee told radio station SEN.

"They've got an agenda and they don't see me as part of that agenda. I had a pretty strong view and a good sense of where the club needs to go and that's not in synch with where the new team is in terms of raising the bar … and that's disappointing and life goes on.

"I think that there was probably a disconnect from the moment the new team came in and I think that they had a certain direction and it seems that was at odds, as far as I was concerned.

"At the end of the day, they're the board, so they get to choose, so it's disappointing, but I hope the club can go forward and I'm proud of a couple of things that I've been involved with that I think will be terrific for the club and let's hope it goes forward."

McNamee replaced Steve Harris as Melbourne CEO in April, two months before Stynes took over as president from Paul Gardner.

McNamee is a former tournament director and chief executive of the Australian Open grand slam tennis tournament.

He also worked as executive chairman of the men's and women's Australian Open golf tournaments before joining Melbourne.

McNamee said he knew it was "untenable" and was "not going to fight that to the death" after a report in the Herald Sun on Tuesday suggested his time was almost up. He said it wasn't "pleasant" finding out that way.

"I was pretty shocked by what was in the paper yesterday to be honest, so it's come as a bit of a surprise, but you get to know where the drift is, so it was becoming untenable," McNamee said.

"There had been a drift that I could sense when the new board came on … and it really came to the fore yesterday morning, when you pick up the paper and read something like that and you go 'Whoa'.

"I've seen these things happen before … I'm disappointed that the goals that I thought were achievable … I was trying to raise the bar pretty high actually and I wasn't going to be there forever, but I thought in the time I could really help this club – it's a proud club and a great club and it's the premier club, being the first in the competition and I had a strong sense of that."

McNamee said Stynes was originally part of the interview process when he was applying for the Melbourne position, but was annoyed when he was not consulted later on.

"He [Stynes] was in the initial part of the interview process, but was extremely upset that he wasn't involved in the latter part of the interview process," McNamee said.

As for McNamee's future, he said he wants to remain in sports administration.

"I love sports administration – I love it – so that's the field that I love to be in and I love to be part of creating a vision and that's a CEO's role and I look forward to that opportunity somewhere else, but right at this moment, I'm still coming to terms with it," McNamee said.