{"id":925155,"date":"2026-10-12T07:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T07:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925155\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T07:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T07:20:22","slug":"zak-butters-suggests-changes-to-afl-player-movement-wouldnt-be-a-bad-thing-after-joining-bulldogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925155\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Butters suggests changes to AFL player movement ‘wouldn’t be a bad thing’ after joining Bulldogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zak Butters says he contemplated going public with his planned move home to Victoria while playing out his final season at Port Adelaide.<\/p>\n

The Western Bulldogs unveiled their star recruit at Whitten Oval today following his blockbuster move as a free agent on a nine-year deal worth $2 million a season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With a year left on his contract at the Power, Butters knew he was leaving Alberton following open conversations with the club at the end of last season.<\/p>\n

He discussed going public with his plans with manager Peter Lenton.<\/p>\n

“I definitely contemplated and thought about that,” the midfielder said.<\/p>\n

“But I think the AFL landscape isn’t probably quite ready for it.”<\/p>\n

NRL players can sign deals with rival clubs once they enter the final year of their contract or earlier if given permission.<\/p>\n

Butters unveiled by Bulldogs after ‘megadeal’<\/a><\/p>\n

Zak Butters is finally unveiled as a Western Bulldogs player as Port Adelaide receives four first-round picks in a five-team mega trade ticked off by the league.<\/p>\n

Deals are often announced during the season.<\/p>\n

The AFL system is more restrictive, with listed players coming off contract only able to officially move in the off-season through trade, free agency, drafts and the supplemental selection period.<\/p>\n

“The way I play football and the way I train, I feel like I’d be able to show up and front up and do it,” Butters said.<\/p>\n

“But definitely, I feel like in the future, I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t be a bad thing.”<\/p>\n

Butters, a three-time All Australian, was strongly courted by the Bulldogs, Geelong, Collingwood and Richmond throughout the year.<\/p>\n

Geelong was viewed as the frontrunner for his signature, but Butters denied he or his management ever indicated to the Cats they were his first preference.<\/p>\n

The ball magnet insisted he never completely made up his mind until returning home to his family property at Darley, west of Melbourne, after the Power’s season had ended.<\/p>\n

“I guess I probably took my time to do that,” Butters said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a pretty long contract and it’s probably the rest of my career so I wanted to make sure I get it right.<\/p>\n

“I probably leaned towards different clubs at different stages but, ultimately, I got to where I wanted to get to.”<\/p>\n

\"Zak<\/p>\n

Zak Butters (right) pictured with Bulldogs supporter Hunter Zerafa. (Getty Images: Graham Denholm)<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs pulled heavily on Butters’s heartstrings in their pitch, drawing on his boyhood fandom for the club.<\/p>\n

A handwritten letter from 11-year-old Hunter Zerafa, accompanied by a 20-cent coin taped inside, begging Butters to pick the Bulldogs revived childhood memories.<\/p>\n

“I thought back to when I was younger and loving Bulldogs players and looking up to them and coming down to open trainings,” Butters said.<\/p>\n

“I used to have birthday parties at Whitten Oval when I was a kid.<\/p>\n

“I’ve still got the letter at home, and the 20 cents is still in there. I might have to invest it.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zak Butters says he contemplated going public with his planned move home to Victoria while playing out his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[89838,638,64,63,55,639,6082,492963,6091,20248,85,698,23510],"class_list":["post-925155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-89838","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-port-adelaide","tag-port-power","tag-power","tag-premiership","tag-sports","tag-western-bulldogs","tag-zak-butters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925155","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=925155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}