Chris Knights claims he surrounded himself with positive people but actually used another strategy to succeed in business after AFL.
Knights played the system and earned himself a nomination for The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame while trying to save Zib Digital from collapse.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes: the men’s and women’s National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while NRL star Ezra Mam is the most recent recipient.
The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame honours former players and players who received media attention in previous seasons, for similarly scandalous behaviour, and its inductees include Ben Cousins and Julian O’Neill.
Knights claimed he used his entrepreneurial spirit to launch digital marketing agency Zib Digital in 2010 while playing with the Adelaide Crows, and boasts of surrounding himself with positive people to grow a business employing 100 people.
The former Tigers players opened offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and New Zealand when injury forced him to retire from AFL. 1,000 brands across the globe, including Puma, Melbourne Victory FC and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, utilised his service and Knights explained to the AFL in September, 2025,
“My philosophy from the start was similar to when I played AFL – surround yourself with the very best people, have high standards and expectations, and align the business with clients that share the same values.”
But this wasn’t his only strategy.
Knights recently wiped millions of dollars in company debt and reopened the collapsed business a few hundred metres down the road, despite owing $4.5 million to staff, suppliers and the tax office.
This strategy is called “legal phoenixing”, which allows a company to wind up and start again, and Knights used it to leave about a third of the company’s workforce without a job or their owed entitlements.
A former employee said staff were given a day’s notice that “we were surplus … and the business was put into administration”.
According to news reports, just four days later, Zib Digital registered a new ABN without the insolvent entity’s debts. It has reopened in an office close to its original inner-Melbourne headquarters.
A representative of the Australian Services Union called the practice “legal trickery”.
The actions of Knights are legal, but many would argue they’re not ‘in the spirit of the game’
Image: NuNa
The Frownlow Medal 