![\"AFL](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d5d740dc0165f352c6c2c3505b063f4f.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nPort Adelaide’s three-time best and fairest winner Zak Butters has requested to leave the club via free agency and return home to Victoria.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old dual All-Australian’s future has dominated headlines all season with reports of offers of up to $18 million over eight years from Richmond, Geelong, Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
“I’ve made a decision to head home. It’s obviously been one that I’ve wrestled with for a while now,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a tough decision and one that I haven’t taken lightly.<\/p>\n
“Although I’ve loved my time in Adelaide \u2026 I’m probably at a stage in my life where I’d like to get back around some family and friends and enjoy some more time with them.<\/p>\n
“There are so many special memories I’ll take with me and hold with me forever \u2026 I’ll be forever in debt to the football club for drafting a skinny club from Darley.”<\/p>\n
Butters said he would “always be a Port Adelaide person” and would “always value this club and what it’s done for me”.<\/p>\n
“The supporters have been everything, they’ve always got around since day one of being drafted, even this year they’ve been awesome and showed nothing but love and support,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I’ve always tried to repay them in the right way and play football in the right way.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zak Butters has told Port Adelaide he plans to head to Victoria. (ABC News: Briana Fiore)<\/p>\n
In a club statement, the Power said they would now work to facilitate his request whilst securing the best outcome for the club.<\/p>\n
“Port Adelaide has been informed by Zak Butters and his management that he intends to exercise his rights as a restricted free agent and explore a return home to Victoria,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“Zak has been an outstanding servant to the football club since debuting in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He is a three-time John Cahill Medallist and dual All-Australian and we thank him for everything he has given to Port Adelaide.”<\/p>\n
ABC Sport reported Zak Butters had informed some teammates in July of his decision to move to Victoria; a story that was denied by the club at the time.<\/p>\n
Butters played 17 games this season before a syndesmosis injury in Round 18 prematurely ended his campaign, with coach Josh Carr admitting the star midfielder was likely departing after their 10-point win over Essendon on the weekend.<\/p>\n
Port Adelaide has been adamant all season they would match any bid on Butters and force a trade to try maximise their draft capital.<\/p>\n
Speaking to ABC Sport in April, chief executive Matthew Richardson said the club would focus on their best interests.<\/p>\n
“There will be offers that we can match and we will match. It does give the club a fair bit of control in what happens,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Adelaide’s three-time best and fairest winner Zak Butters has requested to leave the club via free agency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[395,120580,43023,3014,34969,29688,9875,120579,5619,6975,515],"class_list":["post-78937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adelaide","tag-adelaide","tag-all-australian","tag-ankle","tag-football","tag-free-agent","tag-port","tag-power","tag-restricted-free-agent","tag-surgery","tag-trade","tag-zak-butters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}