Wright the ship: Why new Carlton CEO stuck by Voss

New Carlton CEO Graham Wright has explained the club’s commitment to senior coach Michael Voss.

The Blues publicly backed under-siege coach Voss last week, committing to him for the 2026 season after a tumultuous and ultimately unsuccessful 2025 campaign in charge.

Wright, who officially takes over from Brian Cook on Friday, joined Gerard Whateley on SEN to discuss all things Carlton and how they reached the decision on the future of Voss.

“Across the last six or seven weeks having a number of conversations with a whole range of different people in footy, looking at everything around our game and the way we play and what we value,” said Wright on SEN’s Whateley.

“So going across the board with our player leadership group and some other players as well around where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, it was pretty unanimous that this is a collective, not just Michael, that we’re looking at and needing to improve.

“Once we’d got all of that information and all the data, I put forward a recommendation to the board last week that we stay with Michael. In essence he’s contracted for next year so it wasn’t like we were making anything outrageous in relation to decision-making.

“It’s what was the right decision for the footy club and how do we go forward and get better, and Vossy is our man. He’ll lead us into next year.”

Does Voss still have the hearts and minds of the playing group?

“Absolutely, yeah,” he replied.

“There was no issue there. It’s always interesting when you’re asking questions but it was across the board, I think everyone admires Vossy the way he led us in a really tough year.

“With these coaches it’s frightening. They’re up twice a week with press conferences and answering into all sorts of questions whether they be about the performance of the team or individuals, or the football club itself. They do an amazing job.

“So he’s led us really well and we are 100 per cent behind him pushing forward into next year and the remainder (of this year) with two games to go.”

Wright discussed a number of other Blues topics.

On the game style:

“Vossy will stick to what we do and hopefully we do it better.

“We do tick a lot of the boxes with inside 50s and contested ball. A lot of the key measures in and around of being a good AFL team we’re pretty good at.

“But I think we’re 18th in kicking efficiency and conversion inside 50 hasn’t been good enough. So there’s some things we need to get better at.

“There are key measures we feel we’re really strong in as well. If we’re able to have a really solid, strong pre-season and bring in some players, hopefully have a much better 2026.”

On Brad Lloyd’s departure:

“Brad has been here seven-plus years now, a high-quality person who really led the football department solidly through some difficult times.

“But post seven years we just feel that it’s time for a new voice, a new leader from a football department perspective and now is the right time.”

On changing Voss’ coaching staff:

“Potentially. Vossy and I spoke about it yesterday for the first time.

“We haven’t arrived exactly at what that will look like. We’ve been really open and honest with our assistant coaches that are out of contract on the way through.

“We’ll make decisions, certainly in the next couple of weeks we will give them clarity and certainty about what the future holds. But we’re just working through that now.”

On the playing list:

“We’re a long way away from where we would hope to be or challenging for.

“Some of that is in relation to our list. We’ve relied on some younger players and out of adversity comes opportunity, so we’re finding out about some of those younger guys in the back half of the year, particularly when we’ve had injuries to key players late.

“We’re like everyone, we need to get better. Right at the moment we’re not good enough and we’re going to look at every angle whether it be trade, free agency, draft, about how we get better.

“We won’t shy away from that.”

On this trade period:

“I’d think we’d be pretty active, but that might be taken out of our hands as well.

“We’ve got a couple of free agents that are looking in the market and that won’t be our decision either.

“We’ll deal with what we have to, and we’ll be working our butts off to get better.”