The prince of business networking, the lewd pic and the ghost poster

Nothing says “boys club” like a gathering of influential men from sports, politics and business at an exclusive French restaurant to support one of their own.

Former PwC boss Luke Sayers is fighting to restore his reputation following a male genitalia photo being posted on his X account last year, and the latest morsel to emerge in this saga is some new detail about who turned up to a private lunch Sayers held last year.

Such is the strength of Luke Sayers’ network ties that two of the country’s most publicity-shy former captains of influence, Dan Andrews and Alan Joyce, were among those who stuck their heads above the parapet to break bread at the fashionable and exclusive Melbourne eatery, the Australian Financial Review reported, building on earlier reporting in The Age.

It was a veritable who’s who of Australia’s influential including the former head of the AFL and current chief executive of Tabcorp, Gil McLachlan, sports and television celebrity Eddie McGuire and Seek founder (also St Kilda president) Andrew Bassat.

Even influential lawyer to the business community’s heaviest of heavyweights, Leon Zwier from Arnold Bloch Liebler, popped in.

In all, about 25 men (and his female adviser) came together in April last year to support Sayers’ comeback.

Far from being kryptonite to those who studiously nurture their reputations, Sayers – the former head of consultancy PwC – had sufficient goodwill to gather an impressive group of supporters.

Indeed, networking has long been one of Sayers’ superpowers.

Included in his list of friends is reportedly former federal treasurer and current Goldman Sachs chairman Josh Frydenberg and Crown Melbourne chairman Martin Pakula.

And billionaire Lindsay Fox, Andrew Bassat and Helloworld chief executive Andrew Burnes are all investors in Tenet Advisory, Sayers’ consultancy outfit.

But for Sayers, the restaurant gathering last year might have been a premature celebration.

The history of this scandal began with one grainy penis pic that found its way into the public domain for about 10 minutes in January last year – one which Sayers vehemently denied posting. He says he was a victim of a hack.

Since then, Sayers resigned as president of Carlton AFL Football Club, and his consultancy business, Sayers Group, was rebranded to Tenet Advisory & Investments.

This is despite an AFL finding that Sayers had not breached AFL rules, that his account had been compromised, and the image was posted “by a person not being Mr Sayers”.

The AFL and his well-heeled supporters may be satisfied but his wife, Cate, doesn’t share this view.

The scandal has since morphed into a bitter family dispute.

Cate Sayers filed a defamation lawsuit against her estranged husband alleging that he had implied she was responsible for posting the image online under his name and had made a number of damaging claims about her mental health to an investigation run by the AFL.

Two of the pair’s daughters have entered the fray supporting their father, saying the dispute between their father and mother sat “within a long and complicated family history, with very different accounts of past events”.

Meanwhile, Sayers has a couple of weeks to file a statement of defence in response to his wife’s statement of claim – which, curiously, the court has not made public.

Both Luke and Cate are alleging they are not responsible for posting the image on his X account, and we are not suggesting either did.

But that hasn’t stopped speculation and information bombs being dropped to the media, the latest of which was an assertion that Cate Sayers was 250 kilometres away from her estranged husband (on separate holiday destinations in Italy) when the offending picture was posted, according to the Herald Sun.

Perhaps the upcoming legal action will shed light on the phantom X poster, whose actions have tested the strength of Sayers’ network ties.

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.