{"id":814475,"date":"2026-07-21T13:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/814475\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T13:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:58:23","slug":"afl-news-2026-ben-king-to-leave-gold-coast-suns-backflip-on-contract-move-to-hawthorn-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/814475\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL News 2026: Ben King to leave Gold Coast Suns, backflip on contract, move to Hawthorn Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gold Coast Suns<\/a> are set to lose their cornerstone player Ben King<\/a>, just weeks after the 27-year-old told media he saw his future in Queensland. <\/p>\n

According to The Age<\/a>, King will backflip on a lucrative long-term offer from the Suns and instead nominate Hawthorn<\/a> as his preferred destination for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ben King wants to play for Hawthorn next season.\u00a0AFL Photos<\/p>\n

Multiple sources confirmed King\u2019s position has shifted significantly in recent weeks, with the Hawks now poised to snatch up one of the competition\u2019s premier key forwards.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s contract at Hawthorn is expected to be a six-year deal, taking him until the end of 2032.<\/p>\n

If King does move, his decision would become one of the most dramatic contract backflips in recent AFL<\/a> history as only weeks ago he was expected to stay at the Suns. <\/p>\n

The Suns have been in troubling times recently, amid an on-field slide in performance after eight consecutive losses<\/a> and off-field tensions<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Gold Coast have not yet officially been told of King\u2019s intention to leave the club. <\/p>\n

He will be in Melbourne this week ahead of the Suns\u2019 game against Carlton<\/a> at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gold Coast Suns are set to lose their cornerstone player Ben King, just weeks after the 27-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-814475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}