In an explosive interview, Kennett said he thought GWS would ‘‘never work’’. Ex-Victorian premier Jeff Kennett at the Dame Elizabeth Murdoch funeral in Melbourne last year. Credit:Jesse Marlow "If we continue to push I fear the money brought in to support it will continue to cripple the rest of the clubs that run the competition,’’ he said. "Do we continue to back this mistake out of pride, or say it doesn’t work? "I fear we are on the verge within the AFL of committing our own Gallipoli, where leadership is not flexible enough to say we’ve made a mistake."

The former Victorian Premier used the same interview to reveal he had been approached by Melbourne members to become chairman of the embattled Demons, and that he would be ‘‘absolutely up’’ for the job. Kennett, who was previously Hawthorn Football Club president, said he was approached as recently as two weeks ago to take on the job. "There’s Melbourne members out there who have approached me in the past few weeks who have asked me would I be part of a group to run against the incumbent board ... to go in and help Melbourne. I’d do that,’’ Kennett said on radio station 3AW ‘‘Melbourne is a strong brand, it represents our state. ‘‘It will survive, but it needs a winning culture ... and it needs good governance, it doesn’t have any of that.’’

Kennett urged Melbourne fans to lobby the club for an extraordinary general meeting to oust current president Don McLardy. ‘‘I've called on the board to go. I can’t believe they still sit there with so many failures on their hands. ‘‘If I could get the Melbourne supporters to say, ‘Enough’s enough’ and allow us to put together a board of five, we’d give them six to seven years to rebuild. ‘‘You can keep fiddling while Rome burns, but at some point the Melbourne supporters themselves are going to have to decide if they are going to let their club simply bottom out at the bottom of the ocean, or rise up and start rebuilding.’’



McLardy was diplomatic in his response to Kennett's comments: “Over the last few years Jeff has been very vocal in his thoughts on our club. His suggestions for our club have included merging with North Melbourne and moving to the Gold Coast. We don’t believe Jeff’s views on our club align with our members,” McLardy said in a statement. Sheedy was more forthright in his criticism of Kennett's possible intervention at Melbourne.



"Jeff should thank Ian Dicker every day for what he did at Hawthorn. I am sure there are many there who would love to see him go to Melbourne," Sheedy tweeted.



"The question is would you wish it on Melbourne?"

The Demons have had a tough year on and off the field with constant speculation about the future of coach Mark Neeld. The Demons lost by 95 points to Hawthorn on Sunday, their seventh loss by a margin of 60 points or more in the opening 10 rounds. They face Collingwood on Monday. with AAP and Scott Spits