Wednesday night’s extraordinary general meeting saw North successfully depart its shareholder governance for member control for the first time in over 20 years.
As emotional as it was historical, Brayshaw acknowledged the “weight off our shoulders” – knowing the club had appeased the League by assuming the structure.
“The AFL have made it very clear repeatedly that unless we do it, they’re not going to fund us,” he said.
“Whether it’s funding via a better stadium economic arrangement or funding via an ASD (annual special distribution)-style arrangement, whatever way it is we need it.
“They said to us, ‘We’re prepared to help you with it, more than happy to help you with it, but you can’t be privately owned’. That’s been a very consistent message right the way from the end of last year, even when Andrew (Demetriou) and I perhaps were at our worst loggerheads.
“We are just ecstatic that from today on, the North Melbourne footy club is a club owned by its people – which is exactly how it should be.
“Some of these people have been members of the club and fans of the club for 50, 60, 70 years and they didn’t think they’d see the day when this would happen,” he added.
“And they thought that that member-ownership structure was gone forever. A lot of them are very emotional tonight and I think it’s a sign of how much they appreciate what’s happened.”
Brayshaw, who took over as chairman in December, believed the change could also encourage prospective members.
“A lot of people have been reluctant to get stuck in as a member of the footy club because they’ve thought, ‘Well, I don’t have any control over what happens at [a] club that’s run by other people’,” he said.
“I would have hoped that all North Melbourne people would now go, ‘Right, I own this club as much as James Brayshaw the chairman and Eugene Arocca the CEO, and I’m going to join up and be a big part of this club’s future’.”
While he revealed “robust discussion” was held with the club’s biggest shareholders from January, soon after North chose to stay in Melbourne over a move to the Gold Coast, Brayshaw was surprised at how smoothly the formalities went.
“I honestly thought, ‘Is there a final twist in the tail here? Is there some way that this is perhaps not going to work?’
“It’s been such a huge journey. We (the board) all thought, ‘We’re pretty confident it’s going to go okay’ but it’s one of those ones where you wouldn’t believe it until you’ve actually seen it.
“The response was unbelievable, unequivocal.”
