Cate Sayers suing ex Carlton president Luke Sayers over allegations he implied she posted lewd photo

Former Carlton Football Club president Luke Sayers is facing legal action over the nude photo scandal that saw him step down.

His estranged wife, Cate Sayers, is suing him for defamation, alleging he had implied she was responsible for the photo of a penis being posted to his X account on January 8 last year and that he made damaging claims about her mental health.

Mr Sayers, who served on the Carlton board from 2012 and took over as president in 2021, was on holiday in Italy when the lewd pic was posted, with a female executive at the club’s sponsor Bupa tagged.

It was deleted five minutes later.

Mr Sayers vehemently denied posting the image, claiming his account was hacked, and promised to “leave no stone unturned finding out who did this to me”.

The Australian Financial Review reports it is alleged Mr Sayers made damaging claims about his wife in a statutory declaration given to the AFL’s integrity unit during its probe into the matter.

A number of sources have told The Australian that Ms Sayers was not interviewed by the AFL but that claims were made about her during the investigation.

The integrity unit eventually found his account had been compromised and cleared him of breaching AFL rules.

Carlton had launched its own probe into the matter but shut it down when Mr Sayers resigned.

A spokesperson for Cate Sayers confirmed to the Australian Financial Review that “proceedings have been commenced in the Supreme Court of Victoria”.

“As the matter is now before the court, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Mr Sayers is a former PwC chief executive who started his own Melbourne-based investment firm, the Sayers Group, in 2020.

Mr Sayers stepped down as Sayers Group executive chairman last year and in the middle of 2025 the company rebranded to Tenet Advisory & Investments.