Benjamin Buckley (born 29 June 1967) is an Australian businessman, former

Australian Rules Football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er and former chairman of the

North Melbourne Football Club The North Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Kangaroos or colloquially the Roos, is a professional Australian rules football club. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AF ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...

. He is the former chief executive officer of

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only establ ...

Australian football playing career

Buckley, a defender, played 74 games between 1986 and 1993 for

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

in the

VFL/AFL The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...

and was vice-captain from 1990 until 1992.

Education

Buckley's secondary education was in his home state of

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

. He has a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in Applied Science.

Working life

Buckley joined

Nike, Inc. Nike, Inc. (stylized as ''NIKE'') is an American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon. It is the world's largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, ...

from 1994 as Director of Marketing in Japan and later took over the same role in Australia. He was general manager of EA Australia briefly in 1999. Buckley was then appointed the

's general manager responsible for broadcasting, strategy and major projects, before becoming chief operating officer, a position which he held until 2006, when it was announced on 8 November 2006 that he will replace John O'Neill as chief executive officer of

. Led unsuccessful bid to bring FIFA World Cup to Australia. On 21 August 2012 it was announced he had stepped down from his position as chief executive officer of

. At the same time, it was announced he would be replaced by former chief executive officer of the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

David Gallop David Gallop is an Australian sports administrator, lawyer and served as the chief executive of the Football Federation Australia until December 2019. He previously served as the chief executive officer of the National Rugby League between Febr ...

Currently Buckley is the Executive Director in Foxtel, overseeing and managing sports contents within this Broadcast media company. On 20 October 2016, Buckley was voted in as the new chairman of the

, replacing

James Brayshaw James Antony Brayshaw (born 11 May 1967) is an Australian media personality and retired cricketer working in television for the Seven Network and radio for Triple M. For Seven Sport, he hosts and calls Test cricket during summer and Australian ...

. He stood down in 2022.

Personal life

Buckley has four children, including Jack Buckley who plays football for

Greater Western Sydney Greater Western Sydney (GWS) is a large region of the metropolitan area of Greater Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia that generally embraces the north-west, south-west, central-west, far western and the Blue Mountains sub-regions with ...

References

1967 births Living people Australian chief executives North Melbourne Football Club players Association football executives Football Australia officials Australian rules footballers from Tasmania VFL/AFL administrators Australian sports executives and administrators Chief operating officers Tasmanian State of Origin players 20th-century Australian sportsmen {{AFL-bio-1960s-stub