Club/s
Brisbane Bears
Brisbane Lions
Years
1990-96 (Bears CEO)
1997-2001 (Lions CEO)
Honours/Awards
Lions Premiership CEO (2001)
Lions Life Member
Queensland Hall of Fame
Andrew Ireland has been one of most influential administrators in AFL football in the past 40 years, and a man who was front and centre when some of the biggest and most important decisions of the Brisbane Football Club were made.
The abandonment of private ownership, the relocation from Carrara to the Gabba, the appointment of Robert Walls and Leigh Matthews as coach, and the merger of the Bears and Fitzroy to form the Lions … he was critical to them all.
There was nobody more proud and more justifiably satisfied when the Brisbane Lions won their first flag in 2001 than the Chief Executive.
He was affectionately called ‘The King’ and understandably so, having played 110 games and four grand finals with Collingwood in the 1970s before his time in Queensland, where he was AFL Queensland General Manager before taking over as Brisbane Bears CEO in 1990.
After 22 years with the club he joined the Sydney Swans, where he became a dual premiership-winning CEO … in the two toughest markets in the game.
Recently retired after 17 years with the Swans and now living back in Brisbane, he is a Brisbane, Sydney and AFL Life Member, a Queensland Football Hall of Famer, a director of Sport Australia … and now a member of the Brisbane Lions Hall of Fame … ANDREW IRELAND.
