{"id":879896,"date":"2026-09-04T16:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/879896\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T16:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:24:21","slug":"afl-news-2026-toby-greene-free-agency-call-to-zak-butters-geelong-cats-move-greg-swann-on-trade-loophole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/879896\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL News 2026: Toby Greene free agency call to Zak Butters Geelong Cats move; Greg Swann on trade loophole"},"content":{"rendered":"

GWS<\/a> captain Toby Greene<\/a> has revealed that he has spoken with Zak Butters<\/a> about his own future, as the pair weigh up free agency moves, potentially both joining Geelong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Butters has told Port Adelaide<\/a> he will be departing this off-season, with the Bulldogs<\/a>, Cats and Tigers<\/a> the teams he is choosing between.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Toby Greene is yet to make up his mind.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Geelong has been seen as the narrow frontrunner<\/a>, though the Bulldogs\u2019 offer sits at an astonishing $18m over nine years.<\/p>\n

Greene meanwhile is reportedly either joining the Cats as an unrestricted free agent, to relocate his family back to Victoria, or staying with the Giants and finishing his career a one-club player.<\/p>\n

The Giants have concluded their season and held their best and fairest, won by defender Lachie Ash on Thursday night, but Greene admits he is still wrestling with his final decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a busy week and there\u2019s a fair bit of thinking coming up, I\u2019m wrestling with the decision,\u201d Greene told SEN on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I have to work out with the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe factor of coming home to Vic is family, if we want to have more kids that makes life easier. I love the Giants, I put all my time and effort in there for 15 years, that\u2019s what I wrestle with at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the contracts are pretty similar so that\u2019s not really a factor in the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Geelong I\u2019ve had an open discussion, I told them what I think about and what I wrestle with and they then explained what it would look like for me. Geelong would be a lot less travel and more time for family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey discuss aspects of the role and how it would look in the team. It looks different at different options.”<\/p>\n

In that same chat, Greene revealed he had reached out to Butters to see where he was at, noting that the Power midfielder’s decision may affect his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked (Geelong about Butters), it\u2019s important. I spoke to Zak as well and it\u2019s something I will do again in the next few days, he adds a bit of weight to that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to see where his head was at, the things he values highly in his decision. That\u2019s what I asked him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on Nine’s Footy Classified on Tuesday, leading AFL reporter Cal Twomey revealed one of Butters’ potential suitors, either the Cats or Dogs, had put forward a proposition to Port Adelaide on how to get the deal done.<\/p>\n

This would involve the Power allowing Butters to leave as a restricted free agent, instead of matching the deal and forcing a trade. The club would then be granted pick five as first-band free agency compensation, given they hold pick four.<\/p>\n

After that, the two teams would then engage in a one-sided trade that would see Port Adelaide acquire further picks and potentially players without having to give much up, maximising their return for the superstar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zak Butters will depart Port Adelaide.\u00a0AFL Photos<\/p>\n

The revelation of this potential arrangement has sparked a backlash, with fans and experts alike wondering how such a deal could possibly be legal. The draft pick a team receives for a free agent departing is supposed to be compensation in lieu of a trade.<\/p>\n

Port has been staunch that they would match any free agency offer to force a trade for Butters, given they felt pick five would be an insufficient return.<\/p>\n

Geelong pulled off a similar deal previously, acquiring pick seven and defender Jack Bowes from Gold Coast in 2022, in exchange for a third round pick. However, this was ticked off as a salary dump trade, with the Suns desperate to clear his money from their books.<\/p>\n

Given the Bowes deal and the fact that the Cats were fined in 2025 for breaching third-party player payment rules<\/a>, and then fined again in 2026 for a hidden concussion waiver in the contract of Jake Kolodjashnij<\/a>, this potential loophole surrounding a Butters trade has raised significant eyebrows.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes<\/a> put the question directly to AFL head of football Greg Swann on Friday, saying \u201csurely\u201d it wouldn\u2019t be allowed to happen.<\/p>\n

Swann stated that every trade has to exist on its own merits.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see what happens. If Zak goes and (Port) take the compensation pick and then there\u2019s a trade for another player or trades for picks, it\u2019s got to stand up,\u201d Swann told SEN.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just monitor that and see what it looks like.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like, for which we got slammed for, when we sent the letter out to say don\u2019t rest too many players (in Round 24) and everyone lost their minds. We do the same thing with trades. We do that every year.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery deal gets scrutinised. We talk to clubs and record with each party what the deal was, if there\u2019s anything else behind it, if there\u2019s any side deals or anything else involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always do that, so we\u2019ll remind clubs again that\u2019s the process and just monitor it as it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Greene transaction will be far simpler given he is an unrestricted free agent. He simply has to nominate his team of choice, or sign a contract extension with GWS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GWS captain Toby Greene has revealed that he has spoken with Zak Butters about his own future, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-879896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879896","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=879896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}