Editing North Melbourne Football Club (section)

===Ownership===
{{More citations needed section|date=August 2018}}
[[File:James Brayshaw.jpg|200px|thumb|[[James Brayshaw]] was club chairman from 2007 to 2017]]

`The North Melbourne Football Club is a non-profit organisation limited by guarantee. Members of the club serve as the guarantees of capital and have full voting rights at AGMs to elect directors to the club's board.

The club's board of directors has nine members, with each director serving a three-year term before their position is put up for re-election at an AGM. Only one-third of the board is contested at each AGM due to the rolling structure of the terms of the directors. This structure safeguards the entire board from being ousted at a single AGM and has made North Melbourne immune to a lot of the in-house fighting witnessed at other AFL football clubs. The board governs the club as well as selecting a chairman to head the club through a majority vote of directors.

North Melbourne is unique in its structure, because from 1986 to 2006 the club was privately owned and limited by shares. The club was floated in 1986 through a membership vote led by then chairman Bob Ansett. At the meeting, members were encouraged to buy into the club by purchasing shares. The float ended up raising over $3&nbsp;million and helped to keep the club solvent through the next decade.

In 1991, the [[John Elliott (businessman)|John Elliott]]-led [[Carlton Football Club]] attempted a hostile take over North Melbourne by purchasing a large parcel of shares formerly owned by [[Robert Ansett|Bob Ansett]]. The Blues acquired 20 per cent of the capital but that stake was eventually bought back in 2001 by [[John Magowan]], the former head of Merrill Lynch Australia. The resulting melodrama saw the formation of B-Class shareholders who had the effective power of veto over any attempt to merge or relocate the club.

{{further|Proposed relocation of the North Melbourne Football Club}}
Further takeover attempts were made in the first decade of the 21st century by the [[Southport Sharks]]. Then chairman Allan Aylett knocked back a proposal from the Sharks that would have seen them gain a majority stake in the club in exchange for an injection of capital. In early 2006, another proposal from Sharks to underwrite the Kangaroos' games on the Gold Coast, in exchange for a slice of the shareholder structure at the club was knocked back after AFL intervention.

Due to an [[Australian Taxation Office]] ruling in 2006, the club proposed a shareholder restructure that would have seen the B Class shareholders power reduced significantly and some voting rights returned to members. This was done to avoid extraordinary taxes being placed on the club, but the move was blocked in December by Bob Ansett and his proxies who feared that the restructure would make the club vulnerable to further takeover bids.

On 28 February 2007, another meeting was called to resolve the shareholder issue. A motion was passed that would return see some voting rights return to members and stop any future tax increments.

In April 2007 it was revealed the AFL was attempting to buy out the shareholders of the club in a bid to gain full ownership, and force a relocation of the club to the Gold Coast.

During October 2007, a group called [[We Are North Melbourne]] (WANM) emerged and launched a public campaign, calling for ordinary members to be given the final say on the relocation issue. While the group became synonymous with the push to keep the club in Melbourne, its first priority was to see the club's shareholder structure wound-up and control returned to ordinary members.

North Melbourne reverted to public company in November 2008. A moratorium was passed at an extraordinary general meeting that allowed [[James Brayshaw]]'s board to serve unopposed until 2010, so as to allow his ticket the maximum time to enact their policies to make the North Melbourne Football Club financially viable.

On 20 November 2016, former Aussie Rules footballer and Football Federation Australia chairman [[Ben Buckley]] replaced James Brayshaw as the new chairman of the club.

In 2022, North Melbourne appointed Jen Watt as CEO, joining President Dr Sonja Hood in the first all-female AFL leadership team.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.afl.com.au/news/870305/north-melbourne-appoints-jennifer-watt-as-new-ceo | title=Roos appoint MCC executive as new CEO | date=29 November 2022 }}</ref>

Previously a club with issues about financial sustainability, North became debt free in 2021 and through to 2023 has posted multiple consecutive surpluses.<ref> {{Cite web |title=Financial Report Year Ended 31 October 2023 |url=https://resources.nmfc.com.au/aflc-nmfc/document/2023/12/08/9f94571a-c5b0-4277-b7d5-84078573173c/2023-Financial-Report.pdf |website=resources.nmfc.com.au}}</ref> In 2022, North established the Arden Fund to boost the club's long term financial sustainability.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nmfc.com.au/news/1216833/roos-launch-game-changer-arden-fund | title=Roos launch 'game-changer' Arden Fund | date=8 September 2022 }}</ref>