Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Demons CEO: Why we hired Steven King
Andrew Slevison • September 15th, 2025 11:20 am
Melbourne CEO Paul Guerra has explained why the club hired Steven King as the new senior coach.
The current Geelong assistant was announced as the Demons’ next coach late last week after 30 prospective coaches were interviewed.
Guerra was simply asked: Why Steven King?
“A number of reasons. He’s a standout person for starters, a great family man,” Guerra said on SEN’s Fireball.
“We loved his articulation of the game plan, particularly the contemporary side of it. We love how he’s using technology to inform that as well.
“We just love his ability to communicate. We think he’s the right choice for our team with where we’re at right now.”
Guerra gave some insight into the process which started with 30 and was whittled away to just a handful.
“We spoke to about 30 prospective coaches in the lead-up to it (the decision), and then we invited six of them back for what was the ultimate process where we had a panel put together,” he added.
“We put each of them through a series of questions and we got a presentation out of them as well. Five of them went through that. Ultimately Hayden Skipworth decided not to go through it.
“So we took two back for a final on Thursday and at that point we knew we had our man in Steven King.
“Once we did that we thought out of respect for the finals series and out of respect for Geelong we thought we’d announce it and get it out of the way so Steven could go back and focus on Geelong.”
Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley was the other key candidate at the pointy end of the process.
In the end the Dees went with the untried King who has spent time with the Gold Coast Suns, where he acted as interim coach, and more recently learning from Chris Scott.
Guerra commented on Buckley and is confident he will make a great option for the incoming Tassie Devils if it indeed does go that way.
“Nathan is a quality person and everybody at SEN would know he’s got great football knowledge. He’s an outstanding coach,” he said further.
“This one was in the margins, so anyone that made that final five or six, they’re ready to coach. We’ve got a number of people that are ready to coach at AFL level.
“On Nathan himself, it’s in the margins here. Outstanding football knowledge, outstanding coach.
“If it is to be that he ends up coaching the Tasmanian Devils then we wish him all the best.”
King will be unveiled as the new Demons coach at a press conference at 10am today.
