Hawthorn’s Clarkson-Mitchell succession plan off to a shaky start
Sam Mitchell is moving closer to being Hawthorn’s senior coach a year earlier than planned after the club organised a mediation session between him and Alastair Clarkson.
The mediation – reported by veteran journalist Caroline Wilson on Nine’s Footy Classified – took place last Wednesday at the club and was attended by the club’s head of football Rob McCartney and run by Leading Teams boss Ray Mclean.
Sources familiar with the meeting have told The Age that Mitchell made it clear he would prefer to be coach from next season, a year earlier than the planned handover in 2023.
Sam Mitchell will take over from Clarkson in 2023.Credit:Getty Images
Clarkson, however, is contracted for 2022 on a salary close to $1 million. Unlike coaches around the league who signed more recent deals where they can sacked with a payout of only six weeks, Clarkson’s contract would include a full pay out if he were to be removed by the club.
That payout would need to sit within the club’s football department soft cap.
But industry sources have told The Age that a coach’s payout can actually be spread across multiple years and therefore mitigate the stress on one year’s soft cap, much like when a club negotiates to sever ties with a contracted player.
Clarkson, however, has the upper hand in the ordeal and he can still choose to coach Hawthorn next year.
Alastair Clarkson is contracted to coach Hawthorn in 2022. Credit:Getty
He is unlikely to be appointed as Nathan Buckley’s successor at Collingwood, after multiple sources confirmed a falling out between him and his former football boss Graham Wright, who is now at the Pies.
Rivals Carlton may still be interested as they are in the middle of a review which will ultimately decide whether coach David Teague keeps his job for 2022.
If Clarkson was to land at another club – like Carlton – for 2022 then Hawthorn would only have to pay any difference in the two salaries.
A similar situation took place in 2019 at Arden Street when Brad Scott and North Melbourne parted ways midway through the season and with another year left on Scott’s contract.
Scott landed a job at the AFL in 2020, meaning North were only forced to pay the difference in salary between the club and the league.
Mitchell, a legend of the club and Clarkson’s premiership captain in 2008, has very different football philosophies to Clarkson.
Club sources have told The Age that one of the areas the pair are diametrically opposed is list management.
Mitchell – who will be given power in the area from end of this season – would be keen to promote more youth into the senior team, even if that came at the expense of some senior players.
Clarkson, however, believes the club needs to hang on to the majority of its senior players to help educate the younger ones.
Wilson reported on Footy Classified that Mitchell’s request to be coach from next year onwards was put to Hawthorn’s football sub committee, which is chaired by Mitchell’s friend, former teammate and club football director Richie Vandenberg.
“I’m told that during that meeting it became clear that Sam Mitchell would rather have clean air, to have a fresh start next year without Alastair Clarkson by his side,” Wilson said.
“When this meeting took place – and this happened after a pretty flattening loss against the Fremantle footy club – I think Alastair went along with this, according to some sources at the Hawthorn Football Club, and it was put to Rob McCartney or Ray McLean to report this back to the footy subcommittee – a subcommittee that is chaired by Richie Vandenberg.”
Hawthorn only weeks ago announced a succession plan between Clarkson and Mitchell that would see Mitchell continue to coach Box Hill in 2022 and take over as senior coach in 2023.
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