Western Bulldogs President David Smorgon OAM has re-committed himself to the Club for a further 3 years.

Smorgon has been at the helm of the Bulldogs for 14 years and has overseen the transformation of the Club from one of the competitions battlers to an elite AFL organisation.

“We have come a long way in my time at the Club and it is a credit to everyone who has been involved with the Western Bulldogs since the ‘Fight Back’ of 1989,” Smorgon said.

Off the field the Club has evolved considerably and is now a sustainable business with a very bright future. “We are pleased by the fact we are now showing sustained, significant growth in key areas such as Membership, Crowd Attendances and Brand Recognition for our Major Sponsors.

Added to this is the $30 million redevelopment of Whitten Oval, the resultant significant turnaround in net assets and the fact that we are about to announce our fourth consecutive operating profit which all highlight the fact the Club is heading in the right direction. We understand the importance of building on this momentum and will not rest until the Club is in a financially robust and secure state,” Smorgon said.

Smorgon believes these achievements are strengthened by the undeniable growth of the western region of Melbourne over the past 10 years. This is forecast to continue over the next 20 to 30 years providing what Smorgon believes is both a most significant opportunity and challenge.

“We are extremely excited about what is now recognised as the fastest growing area in the Country, the Western Region of Melbourne. We understand that this remarkable growth alone does not give us a failsafe advantage and accordingly we have developed specific, generational Fan Development and Engagement Strategies to compliment our immediate member renewal campaigns,” Smorgon said.

And on the field, the Bulldogs have made 3 consecutive Preliminary Final’s and Smorgon remains confident that the Premiership window remains wide open.

“I don’t subscribe to the theory that our window is closing, on the contrary I think we remain in a very strong position going forward.  You need only look through our list to see the young exciting talent coming through the ranks.  Aside from our established stars, we saw tremendous improvement from players like Jarrad Grant, Liam Jones, Andrew Hooper, Liam Picken, Jordan Roughead, Callan Ward and Easton Wood in 2010, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.  We are also blessed with promising players like Ayce Cordy, Christian Howard, Jason Tutt, Tom Liberatore and Mitch Wallis who are yet to debut but should give our fans plenty of optimism for the future,” Smorgon said. 

These are the reasons why Smorgon remains as motivated as ever to continue on as the Bulldogs President.

“It is amazing to see how far we have come but we still have a long road to travel.  The pursuit of that elusive Premiership continues to drive me and everyone at the Club into next year.  We have made great strides in so many areas but our goal is to create sustained success and we will not rest until we have achieved this,” Smorgon said.