North Chairman James Brayshaw has congratulated the AFL’s new Chief Executive Officer Gillon McLachlan, acknowledging there was no one better equipped to take on the league’s top job.

“You’ve got to give big organisations direction and now they (the AFL) have got real direction under a young and energetic and very intelligent leader. I think it’s a good decision,” Brayshaw told Triple M’s The Rush Hour.

“They’ll take a new direction under a new leader; maybe after 10 amazing years for the previous leader it’s time for a change. Richly deserved, it’s a big job.”

According to Brayshaw, the key strength of McLachlan is his strong relationships with each individual club, making him acutely aware of the unique concerns and needs of every team.

“I think he’s got a very good understanding of club land and that’s what you need. You’ve got 18 clubs all with very different challenges. Because Andrew (Demetriou)’s been obviously above Gil, Gil’s had the ability to get around to the clubs and find out a lot of that stuff,” Brayshaw said.

“He would have been a lot more hands-on with Cookie (Brian Cook, Geelong CEO) for instance, with Carl Dilena at North Melbourne and has a really good understanding because of his previous role of what’s going on.

“A lot of the issues that clubs have been faced with over the last two or three years, Gil’s been the man you’ve had to go to say ‘righto’, we need to find a solution here’. He has great understanding of that and I think that’ll stand him in really good stead.”

McLachlan says his greatest challenge and desire is to create an even competition which is made up of 18 thriving clubs who are on an equal playing field.

“Working with our less-strong clubs, there’s a disconnect between the strong and the less-strong at the moment that includes our expansion clubs. We’ve got to work with them on improving them, work to solve some of the structural deficiencies and get a more evenness in our competition,” McLachlan said.

Next on McLachlan’s agenda is meeting the needs of the AFL’s most important people; the fans.

“Responding to the issues our fans have got at the moment, there’s a few of those. I think total cost is a challenge but it’s not just that, it’s potentially the confusion around ticketing…we’ve just got to continue to work with our fans to make it simple to go to the footy because that’s what it’s all about.”