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Why Cornes wouldn’t sign Butters to “ridiculous” reported deal
SEN • May 8th, 2025 10:59 am
While he’s a huge fan of the player, Kane Cornes wouldn’t sign Zak Butters to what could be the most lucrative deal in AFL history if he were Port Adelaide.
According to AFL Media’s Cal Twomey, the Power have offered Butters a two-year extension to take him through to unrestricted free agency in 2028. The kicker in the deal is that there’s then a player option for Butters to extend for a further six years until the end of 2034 if he so desires.
With an eight-year agreement essentially tabled, Twomey says that the money involved is more than has ever been tabled by an AFL club over that tenure.
Even though Power great Cornes is one of Butters’ biggest fans, he is simply against signing any player for longer than five years.
Although he concedes that if Port Adelaide weren’t to offer Butters an eight-year deal, another club would certainly do so.
“I think it's ridiculous,” Cornes said on SEN Sportsday.
“I love Zak Butters, but my thoughts are the same on these types of deals regardless of whether the player plays for Port Adelaide or plays for Fremantle. I don't care.
“I just would be so reluctant to sign any player longer than five years.
“If you want me to go through the injured players currently long-term that clubs are tied to with big deals, there are so many.
“My thoughts are on it are, I wouldn't do it, and I don't like it. But if you don't do it, someone will.
“Port Adelaide clearly thinks he's so integral to them that they're prepared to pay and make him the highest-paid player in the history of football.
“If it's not at Port Adelaide, some other stupid club will pay him the same thing. It’s the landscape that we're in.”
While Cornes opposes the offer, SEN SA’s Michelangelo Rucci thinks it’s a brilliant move by the club.
He also thinks that if Butters doesn’t want to sign the deal, then it allows the club to trade him one year before he reaches restricted free agency, where they can potentially get more of a haul back from a rival club.
“I like this with Zak Butters, this is exactly what I wanted Port Adelaide to do,” Rucci said on SEN SA The Run Home.
“Put the offer in front of Zak Butters right now, an offer of a lifetime. It's very clever, two years, and then it's completely up to Zak if he wants it.
“It’s, ‘Give us 2027 and 2028, then you decide at the end of that to walk as an unrestricted free agent, or you could finish your career as a one club player’.
“It’s exactly what I've wanted Port to do. Get it done now, and if you then find Zak Butters is stalling, have the frank discussion, ‘Well, if you want to look at free agency next year, let's do it (trade you) now’.”
