Essendon Football Club wishes to congratulate Peter Jackson on his appointment as an AFL life member, as announced by the AFL on Wednesday morning. 

Jackson served as the Bombers' chief executive officer and managing director from 1996 to 2009 - a period which delivered the club its 16th VFL/AFL premiership.

Following his retirement from Essendon, he was appointed chairman of AFL Victoria and chairman of AFL SportsReady, before joining the Melbourne Football Club as CEO – a role he held from 2013 to 2018.

Jackson was awarded life membership for 'special service to the game', seeing him join women's football pioneer Debbie Lee and WA Football Hall of Fame inductee Ian Miller as inductees under this provision.

Current players Joel Selwood (Geelong) and Nathan Jones (Melbourne) joined recent retiree Jarryd Roughead (Hawthorn) in rounding out the inductees, with the trio automatically qualifying for AFL life membership after reaching 300 games in 2019.

Jackson and his fellow inductees will be officially honoured at the AFL's 2020 season launch in March.