Hotel businesses belonging to AFL great Corey Enright have run into huge financial trouble and have ceased their operations.

Enright — the former Geelong champion who has been tipped to take over as senior coach from Ross Lyon at St Kilda — is a joint owner of two companies that run licensed venues in the Geelong area (Geelong on Yarra and the MD Hotel Group).

Geelong on Yarra ran the Geelong Hotel but they have been evicted from that pub after what has been reported as a “number of breaches”, that include a $300,000 rental dispute.

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That eviction was in April and a staff member has now gone to the media with claims he and nine other staffers are still owed money and super.

Staffer John Vantarakis also said that he was told not to go to the media.

“(They) said it was in the contract to not go to the media … but it turns out they can’t really do anything,” Vantarakis told News Corp.

He said promises had been made that they would be paid but that hadn’t come to fruition.

“The owners would say to us a lot things like ‘one more week’ or ‘just after this event’ that they would be able to pay us,” he said.

“They had the audacity to say that when they had gone into administration.”

Vantarakis claims he is owed almost 80 hours in pay.

“It (Geelong Hotel) had recently ceased trading and does not have sufficient assets to meet any potential claim that may be made against it,” liquidators Worrells said in a report to creditors.

The MD Hotel Group operates The Inn Hotel in Geelong and — after signing a 20-year lease in 2018 — that business owes creditors more than $5.6m.

It has also stopped trading following an order from the Supreme Court of Victoria.

According to administrators, the business struggled to recover from “the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic” and “a decrease in patronage, and an increase in operational costs” had made things difficult.

The report from Worrells said the business owed $3.5m to secured creditor Judo Bank and $1.1m to almost 80 unsecured creditors.

It also owed nearly $350,000 to the Australian Taxation Office, and $145,000 to staff.

Staff, however, are still expected to get paid.

“In regards to any outstanding wages or creditors, the company will direct its attention to these matters once the VA (Voluntary Administration) period has finalised for MD Hotel Group, any outstanding wages will be paid in full,” a Geelong Hotel spokesperson said.

“The company is working through the next steps after the VA process, and working very hard to get some good outcomes for the business in a very difficult time in hospitality.”