It's a great honour to be invited to deliver the Bob Rose Lecture.
I'm also conscious that I follow some great names to have stood here, including Leigh Matthews who gave last year's lecture.
Leigh is a legend of Australian Football and widely recognised as the greatest player of the 20th century. I certainly have never forgotten the first semi-final between Hawthorn and North Melbourne at the MCG in 1982.
It wasn't on the video you just saw and there's a good reason for that. When I became CEO of the AFL I ordered all vision of it to be destroyed from our archives.
But if you haven't seen it, I'm told you can still find it on YouTube. It was also Dermott Brereton's first game and if you watch it you'll see a passage of play where Dermott handpasses the ball out to Rodney Eade.
I gave chase to Rocket as he headed towards goal only to look up and see out of the corner of my eye Leigh Matthews coming towards me from the opposite direction.
If you barrack for Hawthorn you would probably describe Leigh's action as a shepherd. A very good shepherd in fact.
If you barrack for North you might describe it something different. A shirt-front perhaps. Whatever it was - and it felt like a Mack truck to me - I was still lying on the turf as Rocket ran into an open goal.
It probably won't surprise you to hear Hawthorn won the game, Dermott kicked five goals on debut and it was the first and only time my mother ever watched me play League football.
I've also been very wary of Leigh ever since. You might even say a little scared. To this day if Leigh ever calls wanting to do an interview - in fact if Leigh wants anything at all - the answer is always yes.
But I do feel truly humbled to have been invited today.
My association with the Rose family began with Bob's son Peter, who was my first wife Jan Bassett's publisher at Oxford University Press.
Peter and Jan were great friends and Peter gave the eulogy at Jan's funeral in 1999, the same year that Robert Rose also passed away.
Peter later asked me to join the Robert Rose Foundation in honour of his brother, whose story has been well documented.
Perhaps what's not as well known is the outstanding and tireless work Peter has undertaken since Bob's passing to continue to help people with spinal injuries.
Bob Rose is, of course, a name synonymous with Australian football. But Bob was so much more than just a champion player and coach.
He was also a wonderfully devoted father and the image of Bob pushing Robert in his wheelchair to Collingwood games is something etched in the minds of any of those who witnessed it.
Bob's love ran just as deep for his beloved wife Elsie and second son Peter, who has forged a very successful career in the literary world - a career I know Bob was very proud of, and I'm sure he would be just as proud that Peter is carrying on his great legacy to help people like Robert live better lives.
While it's more than eight years since Bob passed away, his life remains an inspiration to us all. To those of us immersed in a game like football, it's a powerful reminder of what's really important: the strength of family and the importance of strong values and their influence on our decision-making right throughout our lives.
Today I'd like to reflect a little on my own upbringing and how it helped me connect with the game of Australian Football and shape my values as a person but also in business and my role as chief executive of the AFL.
My parents both arrived in Australia from Cyprus in 1951, albeit separately. How they came to be here are quite remarkable stories in themselves.
My father was in bed in his village in Cyprus one night when he was suddenly woken up and told to pack his things and escort his uncle out of the country.
His uncle had got a girl pregnant and her family was coming around to kill him. Within hours they were both on a boat to Australia.
It just so happened that six weeks later that my mother was also on her way to Australia. Her mother had ordered her to leave Cyprus after she'd fallen in love with a local boy who had tuberculosis, which in those days was a death sentence.
They both arrived here unable to speak a word of English and without a cent to their name. It wasn't until some time later when they were introduced and a marriage arranged that they discovered they were from nearby villages.
Within six years of being married they had four boys and we lived in a two-bedroom house at the back of my parents fish 'n' chip shop in Coburg.
One of my strongest childhood memories is of my parents getting up at six o'clock each morning to work in the shop and coming back late at night exhausted and smelling of fish and chips.
While my parents toiled, my brothers and I amused ourselves with games of footy and cricket in the back laneway. We'd also play matches with other kids from the neighborhood in the car park at the local Woolworths.
These matches were great for two reasons. First, they taught me the value of staying on my feet because if you fell over you'd cut your legs open.
But they also helped break down barriers. The kids we played with were from a range of diverse backgrounds - Italian, Greek, Maltese, Australian - and sport was a great leveler.
For us children of migrants sport was a great way of connecting to the community, making friends and seeking new opportunities.
I still remember the day my brothers and I all played together at Pascoe Vale. As the youngest, I found myself getting belted by a player from the opposition team.
The next thing I knew my father had run onto the ground and jumped in between us. As surprised as I was, it was nothing on the bloke who was belting me I can tell you.
It was all rather embarrassing and my father was rubbed out for a few weeks. I think it's fair to say my parents weren't great spectators when it came to sport.
But they did instill in us many of the values which I still hold dear to this day. They include hard work, integrity, sacrifice and respect for others.
They're values my wife Symone and I have tried to instill into our own children. Because you want your children to want and to learn that not everything comes easy. To learn the value of money but also respect other people from all walks of life.
My parents also believed in education. My brothers and I all went to Newlands High School. On the other side of the school was Pentridge. For some kids it was a toss-up whether you ended up there or at university. Fortunately I went to university.
It was the early 1980s and I was trying to combine study with a football career. It wasn't always easy getting the balance right, particularly when your attention gets diverted by other pursuits like the opposite sex, having a beer with your mates and punting on horses.
In fact I probably spent as much time with my head in a form guide as I did in my books. The form guide may not have provided me with too many winners but thankfully the books did.
It led to a career in teaching before I became involved in various business ventures. The first was a company called Ruthinium, which manufactures false teeth. In fact, I'm still a director today.
You can imagine what sort of conversation it made for at dinner parties when I used to catch up with my friends from university.
After telling me which law firms they were working for, they'd ask me what I was doing and I'd say "I sell false teeth". It was a real show-stopper I can tell you.
But those experiences were invaluable. They took me right around the world, doing business in countries like Italy where I met a great mentor Giovanni.
I still remember flying to Bologna to meet Giovanni, who was one of our suppliers. I was collected at the airport by a driver who fancied himself as Fangio and drove us 90 kilometres to a nearby town in about eight minutes.
As soon as I met Giovanni I liked him. He was not only very personable but he taught me a lot about business and the art of negotiation.
Giovanni did all his business in person. His word was also his bond. And he believed that any negotiation where one party leaves the table unhappy or feeling as if they've been dudded, is a negotiation not worth having.
This has served me well in my role at the AFL where you have to negotiate with a range of stakeholders, be it clubs, players, broadcasters or government at any one time. And you have to do it in good faith.
It also was an important lesson in collaboration and realising that if everyone involved is benefiting, then everyone will continue to work hard to ensure the relationship prospers. That you grow together.
Travelling also opened my eyes to other cultures but also reinforced the lessons from my parents about respecting people regardless of their background.
It's something that I've done with my own children because I think it not only gives them a great insight into the world but also helps build strong values.
From false teeth, I later became involved in waste management, dealing with rubbish. No, not the AFL but a company called Baxter and those experiences also helped shape my business and personal skills.
This eventually led me back to football, first as CEO of the AFL Players Association and then to the AFL as football operations manager and now CEO.
In a sense, I guess I've come full circle, back into the game which was a big part of my early life but also helped shape my values.
It was something I've been determined to do as CEO of the AFL - ensure that the organisation has a clear set of values and that we hire people who are prepared to live the values that are best summed up by three principles.
First, to be accountable. To act with integrity and to deal with people honestly, ethically and transparently.
Second, to be progressive. To respect the great history of our game and its role in the community but also to embrace new ideas and change.
We say, "If it ain't broke, fix it anyway."
And third, to be respectful. To embrace diversity and inclusion. To listen to other viewpoints and to act with humility and modesty.
These three pillars support what is most important to us at the AFL and that is our legacy.
Leaving the game and community in better shape for future generations.
How many people in this room ask themselves the question - "What do I want to be remembered for? What's my legacy?"
Legacy dominated my conversation with then chairman of the AFL, Ron Evans, in 2003 when he told me I'd been appointed CEO. A great mentor, Ron had a very clear message.
He told me: You don't own the game. As an administrator you get to borrow the game but you need a clear plan and vision for how you will hand it to the next generation in better shape.
That wasn't a conversation about finances. It was a conversation about values, and using those values to guide the organisation in its role as a community leader.
I happen to think that a leader sets the culture in an organisation. There wouldn't be many people out there who don't know what I stand for and what the AFL stands for.
The things that we've tackled and confronted like illicit drugs and respect for women, are also issues important to the community. As far as I'm concerned, they are part of the same value chain.
We don't always get it right. When you have 800 AFL players and 750,000 total participants, mistakes will be made. But we will continue to deal with those issues according to the values we hold dear.
People might ask what all of this has to do with football? The answer is everything. You can't claim to be a leader or leading organisation in this community if you don't care about and embrace the notion of trying to build a better community.
All of us need to do that: sports, business, government, individuals.
I also believe that it's important to make decisions. People don't want leaders who procrastinate or simply engage in spin, just as they don't want leaders who make decisions based on short-term self-interest.
They want people who not only work hard but believe in what they do, take hard decisions and back themselves to achieve results.
As CEO of the AFL, I've also been the beneficiary of a decision taken more than 25 years ago to establish the game's first independent commission.
I mentioned Ron Evans before. We've also been blessed to have had great people on the AFL Commission like Ron's successor Mike Fitzpatrick, Colin Carter, Graeme Samuel, Peter Scanlon and Wayne Jackson.
And I could go on and on back to Jack Hamilton and Allen Aylett, people who left their egos at the door and made decisions in the best interests of the game.
This set in place the foundation for the future of our game but also ensured that all decisions are made with the long-term interests of the game in mind. And by that, I mean the game at all levels.
It's a point Mike Fitzpatrick has reinforced during his time as chairman, a time in which we have sought to grow the game in Queensland and New South Wales and beyond.
From this base, we've been able to build a game that is better financed, more professional, which attracts the best players, the biggest crowds, and is now broadcast on more platforms that - in turn - helps to deliver bigger returns that can then be invested back into the game.
But this is only part of the story.
Yes, more than seven million people attended AFL matches last year.
Yes, there are now more than 750,000 people participating in our game and more than 650,000 people, or one in 36 Australians, are members of AFL clubs.
And yes, Australian football now generates nearly $4 billion in economic activity and employs the equivalent of more than 10,000 people. Proof that football impacts on many lives beyond the boundary.
These are all impressive numbers but at the end of the day they're just numbers. They're not what's really important about our game.
As Eddie McGuire said at the AFL season launch this year, we are all involved in this game because at some stage we fell in love with a team, a player or the game itself.
And the game became a part of our life.
As the son of migrants, I know exactly what Eddie means. Footy gave my brothers and I a sense of community. It gave me a sense of belonging.
Someone once asked me how I would describe our game.
I like to think of Australian football as a great democratiser. A game for anyone and everyone.
A game that is inclusive, accessible and affordable. A game that does not discriminate.
Footy is a great meeting place. Every week it brings diverse groups of people together from across the community - people from a range of backgrounds but with a common passion for the game.
People don't come to our game because they want to impose their values on it. They come to our game because of its values.
It gives us all a sense of belonging to something. A sense of ritual.
It's the same sense of belonging that draws people to football clubs or their local Auskick centre on a Saturday morning.
A few weeks ago I helped launch a book on Liam Jurrah. What other game in the world could produce a story like his? His journey from the red dirt oval of Yuendumu to the MCG is worthy of Hollywood.
Yet his story is ours. It's perhaps no coincidence that he plays for the Melbourne Football Club, which also produced an Irishman called Jim Stynes.
Nobody gave Jimmy a chance of making it in our game, until he won a Brownlow Medal. Now he's helping to rebuild the club despite facing his own life and death battle.
It reinforced to me that you can be black, white, tall, skinny, Irish, Indigenous, rich, poor, young or old but there is a place for you in Australian football.
Take young Tyler Fishlock, a young boy who lost his sight in both eyes to cancer. He loves footy and all his mates were playing Auskick at Caroline Springs.
So the Auskick co-ordinator there, Michael Soloman, adapted a series of drills, using ropes and bells to ensure that Tyler not only plays but he feels as if he belongs.
A similar thing is happening in Western Australia where a local Auskick centre has adapted its own drills so young children with autism can play and enjoy the game.
This sort of ingenuity combined with a desire to bring people together is why our game is blessed with more than 100,000 volunteers who give so much of their time, energy and enthusiasm week in and week out.
Football is also very forgiving. What other game can embrace the likes of Ben Cousins and Andrew Krakouer? It could have been very easy for football to push them away. But instead it reached out and helped them on their path to rehabilitation.
The way we help people in need is surely the ultimate measure of any decent and humanitarian society. Why should it be any different with football?
Yes, it will be great to be able to one day say that I had a hand in a $1.25 billion dollar broadcast deal that helped secure the future of the game.
Yes, it will be great to be able to one day say that I had a role in expanding our competition into Queensland and Greater Western Sydney to help grow the game for generations to come.
Or that I played my part in rebuilding the Adelaide Oval to help secure the future of the game in South Australia.
But it will give me just as much pride to say that I made a difference to not just the game but also the community.
That I was there when the AFL embraced the community after terrible bushfires and floods.
That I was there when the MCG was transformed into a sea of pink to raise money and awareness for breast cancer.
That I was there when Palestinians and Israelis came together to play for the Peace Team in the International Cup.
And hopefully one day I will be able to hold my hand on my heart and say I left the game and the community in better shape.
But I also left the game the same person who entered it and who has been privileged to be part of it.
And who has been privileged to have the game I love be such a big part of me.
Thank you.
