Eddie McGuire's son reveals the parts of his childhood that his famous father swore him to secrecy about
Xander, the eldest son of media icon Eddie, began his broadcasting career as a sports reporter for Channel Nine in 2022 after early acting and internship work.
In 2025 he moved to Channel Seven 's AFL coverage team, earning industry praise and awards like the Clinton Grybas Rising Star.
He has handled the slings and arrows of critics claiming his early success is the result of nepotism with class and is forging his own reputation as a media superstar in the making.
While his famous father was a media powerhouse, he was also the president of the most powerful AFL club in the country - Collingwood.
And now Xander has revealed that not only was he aware of secret meetings in his own house, he helped organise them.
McGuire (pictured with parents Eddie and Carla) says he helped set up recruitment pitches as a teenager during his father's Collingwood presidency
'I remember, I think it was in the year off, when all the Bombers players were out,' he told the Dos and D podcast.
'[Essendon defender] Michael Hurley came over and everyone gave him the full pitch in our living room.
'They had like, the PowerPoint up on the TV and everything.
'My brother and I had to set it up. Dad couldn't set it up cause he had no idea about tech.
'It was very out the back door and don't say anything.'
'That was exciting too because he was a gun. He obviously didn't come so the pitch must have been s**t.
'There was a lot of things going on like that where it was 'don't say anything to your mates', all through our childhood. A lot of player meetings and the like at our place.'
While many would think that it would have been tough to work around the insane schedule of someone as busy as 'Eddie Everywhere', Xander said the total opposite was true.
His father was jokingly given the nickname 'Eddie Everywhere' for his host of television commitments involving footy, The Footy Show and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire along with his role as Collingwood president.
But Xander said that never stopped his dad from being present for important family and individual moments.
'The workload was wild, he was on brekky radio every morning,' he said.
'You wouldn't see him around the house in the morning which was unreal.
'The stress that he would have brought into the equation, like if I can't find my school shoes, he would've blown his top over stuff like that.
'He's better than anyone at finding little pockets [of time],' he said.
'I could count on one hand, not even, the amount of times that I would have had an event, a cricket or footy match, something, and he couldn't have made it to it, when I would have wanted him to be there.
'Even when he would host Friday night footy for Fox, he would come home at 5pm for like an hour, find a way to come home and have dinner with us.
Xander started his media career at Channel Nine, where his father Eddie (pictured together) made a name for himself
'It was never a thing where I felt like I didn't get to see my old man for different parts of when I was growing up.'
You can tell the apple doesn't fall far from the tree watching Xander speak.
He has the same mannerisms, room presence, facial features, hairstyle and he might even have the same suit as his father Eddie.
It is something that doesn't escape him as he forges his own path in media.
'Even though I am following a similar trajectory ... but I've never seen it as [a situation where I have to] emulate what he did,' Xander said.
'It's a completely different game now.
'It's more of a perception thing, to be honest. I don't know what either of your dads did, but a lot of my friends' dads are lawyers, doctors, and they're studying medicine and law right now.
'They don't feel the pressure to emulate exactly what they've done.
'Obviously I want to be successful and if I could be as successful as my old man has been, that would be fantastic.
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