{"id":888842,"date":"2026-09-12T02:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888842\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T02:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T02:20:21","slug":"afl-news-2026-zak-butters-makes-a-call-on-his-future-port-adelaide-deal-western-bulldogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888842\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026 | Zak Butters makes a call on his future; Port Adelaide deal, Western Bulldogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zak Butters<\/a> had made his decision on where he wants to play next season, nominating the Western Bulldogs<\/a> as his preferred landing site. <\/p>\n

Port Adelaide<\/a> had previously confirmed the club has been informed by Butters of his decision to return to Victoria in the future. <\/p>\n

\"Zak<\/p>\n

Zak Butters is heading back to Victoria for 2027 and beyond.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

As reported by AFL.com.au, Butters has been offered a nine-year deal worth around $2 million per season to make the move to the Bulldogs. <\/p>\n

The deal will see Butters earn roughly $18m at the Dogs and play until he is 35.<\/p>\n

If accepted, it will likely be the biggest deal in AFL history.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide will now have to decide whether they will match the monster nine-year offer to keep Butters – a move they have been firmly fixed on. <\/p>\n

But if the club is unable to match that offer, the Power will receive pick 5 in the national draft as compensation. <\/p>\n

Geelong and the Tigers had also been floated as potential sites for Butters, but neither have been able to put up an offer that compares to the Dogs. <\/p>\n

Last week, GWS captain Toby Greene revealed that he had been in contact with Butters and Geelong as he worked towards deciding his future in the competition.<\/p>\n

Greene admitted that Butters\u2019 decision could affect his own future movements. <\/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 he said.<\/p>\n

Butters will depart Port Adelaide as a restricted free agent following eight seasons at the club, where he accumulated 156 caps. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zak Butters had made his decision on where he wants to play next season, nominating the Western Bulldogs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-888842","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\/888842","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=888842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}