A South Sydney Rabbitohs club official has exited the club after over a decade of service following the abrupt sacking of coach Jason Demetriou.
After spending over a decade as the club's Chief Operating Officer (COO), Brock Schaefer, who was second in charge behind CEO Blake Solly, has decided to quit his role, per 9 News journalist Danny Weidler.
It is understood that Schaefer was extremely close to Jason Demetriou and has walked out of the Rabbitohs despite the team asking him to reconsider.
The surprising exit comes as the Rabbitohs are on the lookout for a new head coach next season and have entered its darkest period in over 20 years.
UPDATE: Schaefer has quit. Souths have asked him to reconsider. He's had a decade at the club but feels it's time to change. https://t.co/HY4iGbGTti
— Danny Weidler (@Danny_Weidler) May 1, 2024
A former CEO of the Northern Pride - a team that competes in the QLD Cup - Schaefer was touted as an eventual successor of Solly down the track.
The news comes after the confirmation of Wayne Bennett's interest in the head coaching role, and Solly admitting that there was a lack of confidence in the coaching style of Demetriou.
โI think our view was that the one game was indicative of an inability to turn it around and that we needed to make a quick decision,โ Solly said on Wednesday.
โUnfortunately we didn't think that Jason's coaching style would be able to get the change we needed or the improvement we needed.
โGiven that we sit at 17th on the table and our for and against is 50 points worse than 16th, I think now was the time to make the change.
โI want to say Jason is an incredibly hardworking coach, he's a good person and we've worked together for five-and-a-half years.
โVery strong values and a family man but in our view we felt that the style of play and Jason's management of the players needed to change.
โThat's no criticism of his work ethic or how much effort he's put in, but we just felt we needed a change of management.โ
