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Trade live: Cashed up Collingwood well-placed to pursue Port star
SEN • October 9th, 2025 9:27 am
The 2025 AFL trade period is here and there is plenty to talk about.
AFL Trade Radio is up and running and hitting the airwaves every day.
Follow us live throughout the trade period and we will bring you all the breaking news.
7:00am - Cashed up Collingwood well-placed to pursue Port star
Collingwood will put themselves in a strong position to go after Zak Butters this time next year.
Tom Morris believes the Port Adelaide star will return to Victoria when his contracted expires and he becomes a free agent at the end of the 2026 season.
“I don’t know for sure but I’m confident that Zak Butters will come home as a free agent in 12 months’ time,” Morris said on Channel 9’s Footy Furnace.
“I don’t think that’s an outlandish statement given, in a colloquial way, he’s had a look this year.”
To provide context, co-panelist Cal Twomey suggested the offer on the table from Port would have been the “biggest deal in football history had he signed it at the time”.
As Morris continued: “He hasn’t signed it yet, so the writing is on the wall that Zak Butters in 12 months’ time is coming.
“When you talk about the Pies, Cal, what are you looking at?”
Twomey says the Magpies, when Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom and Jeremy Howe retire, will be cashed up to make a strong push for 25-year-old Butters.
“I think they’re going to be cashed up more so next year than this because they’ve got some veterans who will be in their last year next year,” Twomey said.
“These guys tally up to be about $1 million to $1.2 million. The Pendlebury, Sidebottom and Howe deals all add up. Salary cap goes up again next year of course.
“They’re going to be in a strong position and Zak Butters is going to be right on the tip of their tongue as one of their targets.
“By the end of next year you make the room (in the cap) and work it out later.”
Butters has also been strongly linked with the Western Bulldogs while Hawthorn has also been touted as a possible home.
