FORMER AFL executive member and ex-Australian soccer boss Ben Buckley is to succeed James Brayshaw as North Melbourne chairman at the end of this season.
Brayshaw told AFL.com.au on Tuesday that Buckley was the club's preferred candidate to take over as chairman and the former club vice-captain had agreed to accept the nomination.
"We didn't give him a lot of option. I just said, 'Mate, I've got to by constitution get out and we've got to find someone else and that someone else is you'," Brayshaw said.
"So it was really not much more comprehensive a conversation than that to be honest, but he's a great Shinboner."
Buckley, 48, played 74 games for North from 1986-93, and was acting captain in 13 of them.
After his retirement, Buckley was an executive with Nike and EA Sports before joining the AFL in 1999 as general manager of broadcasting, strategy and major projects.
Buckley rose to the position of chief operating officer under former AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou before leaving in late 2006 to take over as Football Federation Australia CEO.
After stepping down from his FFA role in August 2012, Buckley was a high-ranking executive at Foxtel before this year taking on his current role as CEO of Beyond Boundaries Global, a new sports technology business that has Demetriou as its chairman.
Brayshaw said Buckley had impeccable credentials to take over as North chairman, but would also enjoy strong support at all levels of the club.
"I can't think of a better guy to take over," Brayshaw said.
"I always said when I came in that you had five boxes that you categorically needed to tick at a footy club and they were captain, coach, head of footy, CEO and president.
"So I think we can now categorically tick four of those, when Ben takes over there's the fifth."
Brayshaw has served as North chairman since late 2007 after playing a leading role in the club's decision not to relocate to the Gold Coast.
His achievements in that time include overseeing an increase in membership from about 23,000 in 2007 to a record 43,721 (as of June 14) this year, the $15 million redevelopment of North's Arden Street headquarters and securing a lucrative secondary market for the club in Hobart.
And on Tuesday Brayshaw announced North had extended its agreement with major sponsor Mazda for another three years until the end of 2019.
Brayshaw said North had no plans to leave its Arden Street base but would look to upgrade its facilities in the near future to ensure it did not fall behind the rest of the competition.
"We've got good space to grow within what's available at Arden Street. The basketball pad that's been sitting there since we did the development seven or eight years ago can be extended into at any time," Brayshaw said.
"The old car park area where the old stand was, there's certainly scope to do (something there) and you've got to continually evolve because everyone else does.
"If you don't keep up then especially with free agency getting as intense as it is, players look around and go, 'Well, where am I going next?' and if they don't like what they see, they move on to the next club.
"You've got to absolutely make sure that all of those boxes continually get ticked and we've got plans to do that in the near future and I think when it happens it will be exciting."
