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Important SN update for Southland“How lucky am I”: Inside the AFL's biggest deal in history
Jaiden Sciberras • June 27th, 2025 7:30 pm
Signing the deal of a lifetime, Buddy Franklin’s agreement to leave Hawthorn and join the Sydney Swans as a free agent ahead of 2014 shook the AFL world.
At the time, a 26-year-old Lance Franklin, already a four-time All-Australian, two-time Coleman Medallist, a Best and Fairest and a two-time premiership player, agreed to an unfathomable nine-year, $10 million contract to join the Swans, the biggest contract offer in AFL history at the time.
The Swans, who had just exceeded their club record membership numbers with 36,369 in 2013, were continuing their quest to grow the sport of football within New South Wales, and the highly sought-after signature of Buddy Franklin was exactly the piece required to bolster the great game.
Looking back on the experience of nailing down the greatest contract in the game's history, former Swans coach John Longmire feels nothing but pride in the club’s efforts to successfully undertake such a feat.
“I was as proud of that as anything that we’ve done at this football club,” Longmire told Channel 7’s Unfiltered.
“The fact that we had enough trust in each other to have those conversations internally and to keep it so tight like we did… for me, that underpins a really good footy club – we’ve got trust in each other.
“A lot of people forget that he was a free agent. He was allowed to make that call, and he also called us.
“He wanted to move up here and live with Jes (his partner). He made a lifestyle decision as a free agent, as he was entitled to do.
“I got a message from his manager (Liam Pickering) one night. When I sent back ‘are you serious’ and he said ‘yes’, I nearly fell off the couch.
“We’d just won the premiership in 2012; we’d just recruited Kurt Tippett. I didn’t know how we were going to make it work.
“Andrew Ireland and I walked into the football manager at the time Dean Moore’s office and said, ‘can you make this work’, turned around and walked out and he went as white as a ghost.
“I didn’t know him at all. (I hadn’t met him) until we spoke about him originally coming up. We first met when he was at Andrew Ireland’s house when he first floated the idea.
“I probably misjudged him initially. I thought he was a bit like ‘The Duck’ Wayne Carey. He wasn’t. He was very shy, very quiet.
“Once I realised who it was and what makes him tick and got to know him better… one of the greatest joys I’ve ever had as a coach is to coach Lance Franklin.
“I used to see him before the game and he was as relaxed as you’d ever see, walking around with the young boys, making them feel good about themselves.
“When I asked him about it one day, he said ‘I just never felt more comfortable when I was about to run out on the footy ground’.
“How lucky am I to have coached one of the all-time greats.”
