Dear AFL Commission

It is with great enthusiasm that I send you my application for the vacant AFL CEO role.

I believe I have the necessary skills and more importantly, a truly brilliant strategic plan, to take the AFL to the ‘Nextest Level’™ (that’s the name of my plan. Catchy right?).

As CEO, I would bring a deep understanding of the football industry developed through years of reading the paper and discussing it with co-workers.

I also ran a successful SuperCoach team for twelve rounds until I forgot to do it a few times and then gave up.

Importantly, I also have a strong desire to travel overseas during Australian winters and to one day attend the Super Bowl without having to pay for it myself.

While my personal skills are strong, it is my strategic plan that will set me apart from the other no hopers that your expensive executive search firm are currently putting forward.

Nextest Level™ will see efficiencies and synergies all over the place. It will work horizontally across business units, while also being a top down/bottom up approach to collaboration and individualism.

It delivers in spades best practicing and LEAN principles of process and other stuff.

Here are the key pillars of my Nextest Level™ plan:

Embed a new Culture

As the new CEO, I will want to embed a new culture in my own image.

Our corporate values will therefore be white anting, selfishness, siloing and secrecy.

We will also have a safe word, ‘rabbits’. I believe we will be one of the first corporates to have one although I recall David Jones perhaps having one.

Excellent PowerPoint

Any corporate strategy needs a great PowerPoint ‘deck’ and Nextest Level™ is no different. The transitions between slides have been designed by an Indian whiz kid from Andhra Pradesh. They will literally blow your mind.

There are some great slides that make incredibly intricate and difficult problems look easy to solve, which I think you’ll like. I’ve also put in a few slides with numbers to seem like everything is costed, knowing you won’t read them.

Import Cheap Players from Overseas

Australian AFL players are expensive. $10 million for nine years? Do you know how many footballers from a poor country I could get for that?

We shall start importing these players from India, China and the southern parts of the United States, at a significantly lower wage.

While the standard of play may drop a little, the margins should increase significantly.

All Games on Pay TV

I’m sick of free loaders watching football for free. Under my reign, all games will be on Foxtel pay-per-view. Parents will be encouraged to take their kids to Crown Casino or the local pub if they can’t afford to pay $59.95 to watch each game on pay-per-view.

Change all the rules

As a long-time supporter of rule changes, I believe the one weakness the previous regime had, was moving too slowly. In my first season we will change every single rule, mid-season, at least once.

Catching the ball will no longer be a ‘mark’, players will be allowed to carry a cricket bat and wear a baseball glove and a player will be ‘offside’ if they don’t have sleeve tattoos.

Less Focus on Player Safety

As someone who played sport barely at a low level, what do I care if someone gets hurt? This being nice to players and treating them like people is a sad reflection on the nanny state we have come to live in.

I will reduce the number of umpires on the field to one and instead of enforcing rules, they will only be able to ‘make suggestions.’

Ignore ASADA

You know, I’m not going out like AD did. So what if Essendon injected a bunch of stuff into some young kids. Are we against vaccinations too? It sounds to me like they had a pretty good, rough idea of what they were doing.

Anyway, if you see my point above, player safety is not a first order issue, like profits or cost out programs are.

On my first day I will ring ASADA and tell them we’re out. After all, it’s not like we’re competing in the Olympics is it?

Conclusion

You’re welcome AFL Commission. I will of course need a bigger office than Andrew had, I don’t want to be that close to Mark Robinson when he interviews me.

I can start soon enough but can we make sure Centrelink, the Tax Office or the Australian Federal Police don’t get wind of this till 2018? Few misunderstandings to still sort out there.

Fondest Regards

Titus