The coach of the Brisbane Lions, Justin Leppitsch, has been sacked with a year to go on his contract after another disappointing season for the AFL club.

"The Brisbane Lions football club has chosen to release senior coach Justin Leppitsch from the remainder of his contract," chairman Bob Sharpless said.

"The club's board came to the decision after a thorough review of the team's performance and the factors influencing our continued poor results."

A tale of two coaches Justin Leppitsch ('14-'16) was brought in to right the ship after Michael Voss ('09-'13) was dumped. How do they compare? Coach Voss Leppitsch Games 109 66 Wins 43 (39.4%) 14 (21.2%) Losses 65 52 Draws 1 0 Finals 1-1 ('09) 0 Best season 13-8-1 ('09) 7-15 ('14) Worst season 4-18 ('11) 3-19 ('16)

Sharpless said Leppitsch spoke to the club's board last week on reasons for the team's poor performance this season.

"He gave a number of reasons why the team's results have not reached the levels that we all expect. Those factors included injuries, retirements, a clean-out of the playing list and fixture issues," Sharpless said.

"But at the end of the day, AFL is a results-driven industry and we are simply not a competitive football team at the moment.

"We're regressed from 10 wins in 2013 to seven wins in 2014, four wins last season and to three this year.

"The nature of some of this season's heavy defeats to teams around the same position on the AFL ladder has been bitterly disappointing."

The ABC understands a number of Lions board members went into the meeting supporting Leppitsch.

Lions captain Tom Rockliff declined to comment on the decision.

'Something is not right'

Sharpless said he broke the news to Leppitsch by phone after the board meeting.

"He was disappointed. I obviously thanked him for his time at the club, but he was disappointed.

"We've been supporting some bold initiatives within the football team. We extended his contract at the start of this year because we had the belief we were heading in the right direction.

"This season has just not turned out the way we expected. And when you look at the performance of the team and some of the losses that we've had and the size of those losses, something is not right and the view was we needed to do something about it.

"I think there have been some of the players who haven't had the seasons they would certainly have wanted, no question about that. But at the end of the day, the coach is the coach."

Sharpless said the club would now begin a process to appoint a new coach for the 2017 season.