Richmond president Gary March has denied showing a lack of respect to Kevin Sheedy in demanding he go through the AFL club's recruiting process if he wanted to become coach.

Sheedy briefly indicated his interest in coaching the Tigers this month before withdrawing from the race, saying he sensed the club didn't want him as coach.

Sheedy works in an ambassadorial role for the club he played for with distinction, prior to a decorated coaching career at Essendon where he won four premierships.

March said he would have been happy for the 61-year-old to throw his hat in the ring to coach at the Tigers.

But March said it was Sheedy's decision not to enter what the club says will be a rigorous search for its new coach, and denied the Tigers had shown him a lack of respect by making him jump through hoops.

"Early in the year when we spoke about it, Kevin indicated he wasn't interested in coaching at that time," March told Fox Sports' On the Couch program.

"(Now) he's changed his mind. We offered him to come through the process. He's withdrawn from the process.

"We're disappointed about that. We'd have liked him to come through the process."

March said he had spoken to Sheedy since and believed they had cleared the air about the aborted coaching bid.

Sheedy deflected questions about the Richmond coaching drama last week, and also refused to publicly commit to remaining a Tigers ambassador beyond this season.

March said the Tigers were going into the recruiting process to find Terry Wallace's replacement with an open mind and a long list of good applicants.

"We're going to have 12 or 13 people we're going to interview and it could be any one of those 12 or 13," March said.

"We want to go through our full process, make sure we've interviewed everyone, put them through a rigorous process, and make sure we get the best man for the Richmond Football Club."

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