Life’s all about change, and Youi’s the insurer for all the changes – big and small – that happen to you. That’s why the Brisbane Lions and Youi have teamed-up for the ‘Moments of Change’ series, where each week they’ll look back at some of the defining moments that have shaped the club you know today.

It had been a long, tough five years. Just 36 wins in 95 games and a year-by-year ladder spot that read 13th-15^th-13^th-12^th-15^th. Falling membership and attendances, and serious financial problems.

So when Greg Swann was appointed CEO of the Brisbane Lions on 24 July 2014 there was no mistaking the enormity of the challenge he faced.

It wasn’t going to be quick or easy, but at least the club had one of the AFL’s most respected figures taking charge. It was another key moment of change for a club that had wallowed in mediocrity after an extraordinary premiership hat-trick in 2001-02-03 and a fourth grand final in 2004.

Swann had spent the first 14 years of the 21^st century in charge of two of the biggest clubs in the competition. He was CEO at Collingwood from 2000-07 and at Carlton from 2007-14.

When he moved from the Magpies to the Blues veteran journalist Mike Sheahan light-heartedly reported Swann had committed “high treason”, such was the rivalry between the clubs. And when he took over as the Lions struggled on and off the field one wit suggested it was more like “lunacy”.

But seven years on Swann can be very proud. Since 2019, when the fruits of his work and that of his ‘team’ started to deliver rewards, no club has won more games. It’s Brisbane 53, Geelong 53, Richmond 47, Port Adelaide 47. And last year the club reported an operating profit of $2.9m as the development of the club’s soon-to-be administration and training headquarters at Springfield powers on.

The CEO’s office had been a hot one in the period before Swann arrived. After Michael Bowers was moved on in October 2010 ex-Richmond CEO Steven Wright filled the role on an interim basis for six months. And then  New Zealander Malcolm Holmes endured a challenging rein until he was terminated in May 2014.

The AFL has outwardly concerned for the direction of the club and committed to help new chairman Bob Sharpless in stabilising things on and off the field.

Swann had finished at Carlton in May 2014 without any specific plans. “I was going to have a spell and maybe look at job in horse racing,” he recalled this week.

Gillon McLachlan, who had joined the AFL in May 2000 and been Deputy CEO from December 2012, had been appointed AFL CEO on 30 April 2014. He would take over after his predecessor, Andrew Demetriou, finished at League headquarters on 5 June.

One of McLachlan’s first really significant steps in the top job was a phone call to Swann.

“Gill rang and said ‘we need you to go to Brisbane’. It came completely out of left field, and then I had a call from Leigh (Matthews) and Bob (Sharpless),” Swann said.

Suddenly, in partnership with wife Leonie and children Stephanie and Dylan, Swann had a big decision to make.

“Leonie’s father had been crook and both the kids were home at the time. Other than flying in and out for footy I’d never spent any time in Queensland so it was big decision. Leonie was really the driver … we took about a month or so and decided it was a good opportunity. And here we are,”  Swann said, making a massively important choice seem almost quick and easy.

Stephanie, now 29 and working in New York as an accountant, had finished school at the time of the Brisbane approach. But Dylan, now 26 and back living with his parents in Brisbane while playing football at Morningside, was doing Year 12 at the time.

So, after he accepted the job, Swann spent his first six months in the job in Brisbane solo, living in an inner-city hotel and flying home to Melbourne on weekends.

It wasn’t exactly Swann’s first connection with the Lions, but it was entirely different. And much more pleasant.

A product of Wesley College in Melbourne and a Chartered Accountant by profession, he had worked in 1996 with the administrator appointed to effectively wind up the Fitzroy Football Club after the Nauru Insurance Corporation had  taken action to recoup a debt of $1.25m.

But Swann had always been a football man. He’d played 100 games for Williamstown in the VFA through the 1980s and described himself as “a good ordinary player or an ordinary good player – take your pick”.

A fullback, he was good enough to finish runner-up in the Williamstown B&F to Terry Wheeler, a 157-game Western Bulldogs player from 1974-83 and 91-game coach from 1990-94, and, living in Melbourne in what at the time was the South Melbourne recruiting zone, spent time on the Swans list and played at U19 and Reserves level.

He loved football and was a better player than he lays claim to before persistent hamstring injuries “and probably a lack of talent” brought a premature end to his playing career.

Williamstown, VFA premiers under Wheeler in 1986 and grand finalists in 1985-88, was a big VFA club at the time. “There was no Sunday football in the AFL at the time so it was about the only place you could get a drink. After-match was a big thing,” he said.

Swann was invited to do pre-season training with Hawthorn ahead of the 1986 season but at 23 he packed up and headed overseas to see Europe in a combi van. He returned via Perth in ’87 when the WA capital hosted the America’s Cup, staying there with ever-outspoken football personality Mal Brown.

He played some WAFL football with Perth before returning to Melbourne, and, after deciding football was “more fun than accounting”, found himself president at Williamstown and on the Board of Football Victoria at age 28.

He was in charge at Williamstown in 1995, when the VSFL attempted to force the club into a merger with Werribee, and, staying through until 1998, started to establish excellent credentials as a sports administrator.

The ever-jovial Swann was very much a people’s person. He always knew someone, somewhere. And in a pointer to what was to come, he became friendly with Holden Racing team solicitor Jeff Browne, later a long-term AFL legal consultant, Managing Director at Channel 9, and now Collingwood president. Browne encourages Swann to apply for the Collingwood CEO role.

In 2000, in Eddie McGuire’s second year as Collingwood president, he took over as the Magpies CEO during the coaching rein of Mick Malthouse. He was in charge in 2002-03 when Collingwood were beaten by the Lions in the grand final.

In 2007 he was head-hunted by Carlton money man Dick Pratt for the CEO job with the Blues, and served there during the coaching terms of Denis Pagan, Brett Ratten and Malthouse (again). He worked closely with ex-Carlton champion turned chairman Stephen Kernahan and stepped down at the same time as Kernahan after the club’s 150-year celebrations.

Then, after McLachlan’s timely phone call, the rest as they say is history.

Swann was appointed to the top Lions job in the week before the Lions beat the Gold Coast Suns by 54 points at the Gabba in Q-Clash #8 with a side coached by Justin Leppitsch which included only four current players – Dayne Zorko, Darcy Gardiner, Dan McStay and Ryan Lester

They beat a battling Melbourne by 23 points in Melbourne in Round 19, lost by 105 points to Adelaide in Adelaide in Round 20 and beat Collingwood by 67 points at the MCG in Round 21 to put what turned out to be a dagger through the  dint in his old club’s finals hopes.

They closed out the season with losses by 58 points to Fremantle at the Gabba and 62 points to Geelong in Geelong to finish 15^th on the ladder with a 7-15 record and a percentage of 69.3%, ahead of just GWS, Melbourne and St.Kilda.

There was no sugar-coating things … it was going to be a big job. And it was.

They finished 17^th in 2015 with four wins and a percentage of 67.5%, and 17^th again in 2016 with three wins and a percentage of 61.6%.

But despite the fact that Swann has kept a low personal profile during his time with the Lions, preferring to do the job rather than talk about himself, there was big progress after a string of critical moves under the Swann/Sharpless rule. And more recently Swann and Andrew Wellington, who took over from Sharpless in December 2017.

Most importantly, the balance sheet moved from red to black. Swann presided over the appointment of David Noble as football boss in September 2016 and, after favorite son Leppitsch had been moved on, the key signing of Chris Fagan as senior coach in October 2016.

In 2017 the Lions had five wins and a percentage of 74.3% but collected the wooden-spoon before five wins and a percentage of 89.1% in 2018 left them with the ‘spoon’ again.

But since then membership numbers have jumped to levels unseen since 2010, the club has secured State and Federal Government funding for the Springfield development, the team has finished 2nd-2^nd-4^th on the home-and-away ladder and played six finals in 2019-20-21, and in 2022 are well-placed 3rd at Round 15.

So drastically have things improved under Swann, that he was named Queensland Sports Administrator of the Year at the 2019 Queensland Sport Awards. Even the Broncos reportedly sounded him out in June 2020 for their CEO vacancy, which ultimately went to ex-Lions Communications Manager turned Melbourne Storm CEO Dave Donaghy.

While the football community speculates on what the big-picture McLachlan legacy will be when he steps down at the end of the season he already has left a huge mark on the Lions. And all after a phone call to a man he considered too good in football to be allowed to leave it.

Thanks to our friends at Youi for helping bring this series to life.