Corcoran was a central player in the unravelling of the club's salary-cap breaches of the 1990s, and a number of past Essendon board members and executives have told The Age they are furious with the decision to reappoint him to the club's football department.

''If I was still on the board, I would vote against him being back there,'' said former club director Don McKenzie.

Another former club director said: ''I think the fact that Danny Corcoran has been re-employed shows just how out of touch the current board and administration is with the club's own history.''

For his part, Corcoran was forthcoming about the past, and admitted he had made ''mistakes'' when he was football manager at Essendon. ''I admit that I made some mistakes, that I do have some regrets about the way I left Essendon,'' Corcoran said. ''I was a young man and if I could do things differently, I would. Now I have an opportunity to make a contribution to the Essendon Football Club in a new role.''

Corcoran worked at Essendon from 1991 until 1997, and was appointed football manager in 1995. The Bombers won the flag in 1993, but the club had succeeded with a team paid well above the AFL salary cap.

Corcoran took control of player contracts in 1996 and says part of his brief was to ''just clean it up'' - a reference to the secret payments to players. ''I won't say who told me to just clean it up, but they were his exact words,'' Corcoran told The Age.

Essendon had missed an AFL amnesty on disclosing such payments. In 1999, after a seven-month AFL probe, the Bombers were fined $276,000 for salary-cap breaches. The club was also stripped of its two opening draft picks in 2000, and was banned from taking part in the 1999 pre-season and rookie drafts.

Several former club directors say Corcoran was a key whistleblower, whose evidence resulted in the hefty fines and loss of draft picks. They also highlight his departure from the club in June 1997, after Corcoran had received a lucrative offer from then Melbourne president Joe Gutnick.

Corcoran left amid claims that he had downloaded a computer analysis of the club's recruiting plans for the October draft that year. ''Our IT manager flagged that someone using Danny's log-in had downloaded sensitive club information,'' one former club director said.

McKenzie said yesterday there had been an issue with ''intellectual property'' that had incensed club chairman Graeme McMahon.

It's a claim that Corcoran denies. He says he downloaded some ''spreadsheets and templates'' he had set up during his six years at Windy Hill. ''I returned everything,'' he said. ''They were all blank, and there was nothing of importance.''

Regardless, Corcoran undertook to return any intellectual property that belonged to the club. The Bombers also refused to let him join Melbourne until after the AFL draft, on October 31, but Corcoran's involvement with Essendon's affairs was far from over.

The AFL had obtained a document that revealed Mark Harvey, now coach of Fremantle, was paid almost $30,000 of incentives outside of his official contract in 1997. Corcoran's signature was on the paperwork.

The Harvey document sparked an AFL probe into Essendon's breaches of the AFL salary cap from 1992 until 1996. Investigator Michael Easy led the seven-month probe, and Corcoran swore a statutory declaration that named Essendon players who had received payments outside of their official contracts.

Against the backdrop of Corcoran's acrimonious departure and subsequent evidence against the club, a number of former club directors contacted by The Age yesterday said they were surprised he has been re-hired.

''It would be fair to say I am surprised that he came back,'' said McKenzie. ''But I believe that it was on Hird's wishlist that he came back, and if he didn't come along, the deal to get Hird would not have been done.''

A second former director, who did not wish to be named, added that ''Corcoran would not get my vote''.

Investigation of Corcoran's past employment history was completed solely by Essendon chief executive Ian Robson. He told The Age he had spoken with just ''one former director'' before making his decision to re-hire the former football manager.

Corcoran also denied that his new job at Essendon was linked to the hiring of Hird as senior coach. ''Jim rang me and asked if he took the job, would I come and help him. I said, 'of course I will'. I'm an Essendon person. I made some terrific friends when I was at the club last time, and more than anything I would love to help make the club a success again.''