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Gold Coast CEO expands on Ross Lyon comments
Andrew Slevison • May 26th, 2025 9:12 am
Gold Coast CEO Mark Evans has taken his response further regarding Ross Lyon’s “offensive” comments.
SEN’s Sam Edmund contacted Evans on Sunday after the St Kilda coach labelled the Suns as the AFL’s “nepo baby” prior to the Gold Coast club's 19-point win at Marvel Stadium.
Evans came to the SEN studio on Monday morning to follow up by expanding further on his initial comments, defending the Suns over Lyon’s barb.
“I thought the comments were offensive and out of order,” Evans said on SEN’s Fireball.
“Offensive in that the word implies corruption and favouritism. So that really stabs at the club's hard work over a lot of years.
“We haven't always had the best history at stuff. We lost a lot of players, we had to rebuild. We knew we were going to reset through the draft.
“There's a lot of hard work to get to a position where we've finally had some wins at the front end of the season.
“Ross is an outstanding coach, St Kilda have had some good moments in their history. Grand Final in 2011. It would be like me getting up and saying, ‘Oh, the only reason they've made the grand final is because they were gifted, Nick Riewoldt, Luke Ball and Justin Koschitzke'.
“There's so much work and effort that goes into getting to that stage. Imagine belittling the club that it was just gifted to them.”
Evans implied that perhaps Lyon’s words weren’t merely off the cuff and had an element of preconception about them.
“So, yeah, we found it offensive and out of order,” he continued.
“It’s unusual in a pre-game interview. It’s hard to see that those words would just fall out at that particular time.
“We didn't like it.”
Evans was asked where the Suns will take it, and also if he had made contact with St Kilda chief Carl Dilena in order to get a response.
“Carl Dilena and I passed each other in the corridors yesterday and I was walking along with him for 20 or 30 metres,” Evans added.
“I’m not sure whether he had heard the comments by that stage, but I told him we thought they were offensive. He didn't offer up much at that point in time.
“We don't really care, we get a lot of things said about us - as does every club - we’re not so worried about that.
“But this seemed like a whinge that was out of order, and we want to stand up for our club.”
Do you think you're being overly sensitive?
Evans says that Suns have let a lot of commentary wash over them, but this was one comment they had to act on.
“Well, we haven't been as a club,” Evans replied.
“I reckon we've mostly turned the collars up and let it hit.
“This goes to the heart of all of the hard work of a lot of people, and to turn it around from where we've been.
“Then to just say that that is only because of some corruption and favouritism - that is uncalled for.
“This particular comment, I think, went too far because it talked to the possibility of corruption and favouritism as being the only things that are going well for Gold Coast Suns.
“To me that was the strongest of the comments we’ve faced.”
