Essendon chairman Graeme McMahon spoke at length at the club's Chariman's Dinner last Friday night about a number of issues confronting Colonial Stadium.

Attached is a transcript of the speech McMahon made to those attending last Friday night's dinner.

"...there is however an outstanding matter which is yet to be totally resolved to the satisfaction of our board and management - I speak of course of Colonial Stadium and its on-going problems.

"Let me be very, very clear - the Essendon Football Club is pleased with its move of seven home games to Colonial Stadium.

"We beleive this stadium provides us with a much better venue in size and operating efficiency for our lesser drawing games than did the MCG.

"We are also comfortable that our ability to choose at the beginning of each season which four games to nominate as MCG games is a great advantage to us.

"Our first match return, which gave us the chance to compare Colonial Stadium costs with MCG costs, has given us no unpleasant surprises. We need to do more work on some queries but it looks to be heading in the right direction.

"The stadium itself is, and will be, a great addition to the Melbourne infrastructure and its true advantages to players and spectators are coming to the fore in the type of weather we are experiencing at the moment.

"There have been ticketing problems and ground entry confusion. We at Essendon believe they were man-made. Some good and forceful management can and will eradicate these problems. By way of example, we trust Ticketmaster has now forever stopped selling tickets for seats which simply did not exist.

"Having made those comments and re-inforced our commitment to Colonial Stadium, let me not mislead you.

"There have been problems at Colonial Stadium which have been identified during the four games we have played here and they are continuing.

"They are constructional and design problems and some of them are not going to go away.

"The problems with the surface are well documented. Time will see them eliminated. In the meantime we will continue to demand a safe playing surface for our players.

"This dining room is a problem. The long thin room makes it almost impossible to properly service guests but it can be handled.

"But it is the seating problems we must find a way to redress. Ladies and gentleman there are seats at this stadium with serious deficencies.

"Some seats on level four have a restricted view of the arena due to the roof support structure.

"Some rows of seating on level one are underneath the overhanging grandstand and the view of the scoreboard is obstructed.

"There is a restricted view of the goals with the top of the posts obscured from other positions.

"This list is not exhaustive. There are others.

"They are a problem and they will not go away. However, having identified them we have attempted to do something about them and will continue with these efforts.

"Because of the later completion of the stadium, we at Essendon knew nothing of these issues before commencing to sell reserved seating to our members.

"We had no opportunity to trial the seating to identify deficencies nor were we ever advised by any other party that they existed.

"Furthermore, it would seem that for the first several weeks the stadium owners and operators were in denial.

"There is no point in either hiding or denying the existence of these permanent problems. They must be dealt with.

"Accordingly, for some weeks, our staff have been contacting members to who we unwittingly sold inferior seats.

"In many cases we have exchanged seats and in others we have been asked to change seat allocations for next year. As a result of this pro-active approach a large percentage of our affected members have now been satisfied. We expect to be able to satisfactorily deal with all of our members who have been disadvantaged.

"We have also written to the stadium owners and put forward proposals for the future which we believe will favorably correct a number of ticketing and seating problems.

"We now trust that the authorities responsible for these matters will accept our suggestions and introduce them at an appropriate time. If this occurs, our members' problems will have been dealt with.

"There is however the ongoing problem for now with members and spectators with regard to their seats.

"It is only proper that all restricted viewing seats at this stadium should be treated as they are at any other event - whether that be sporting, theatre or otherwise.

"The public must be informed of which seats are affected, their price must be suitably discounted and purchasers must know exactly what they are buying.

"This process must be transparent. We at Essendon exhort Stadium Operations Limited, as the owner, Nationwide Venue Management, as the manager, Ticketmaster, as the appointed ticketing agency and the AFL to work with Essendon and the other clubs to deal with any remaining issues and finally allow this great stadium to become what it deserves to be.

"That is, another jewel in the crown that is the sporting infrastructure of the city of Melbourne and a venue people want to go to."