Melbourne midfielder Clayton Oliver needs to take a “half-a-million-dollar pay-cut” if he wants to fulfil his reported trade wish.
Nine’s Tom Morris on Sunday reported Oliver is again seeking “a fresh start” after almost leaving the Demons in the past two off-seasons, including a near-departure to Geelong last October.
But while Oliver, who is contracted at Melbourne through the 2030 season, might desire to cut ties at the end of the season, the 27-year-old’s lucrative deal acts as quite the obstacle standing in the way of getting a deal done.
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The Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph outlined the situation on Fox Footy on Monday night, firstly confirming there was “no doubt” Oliver wanted out.
“(There’s been) so much talk about Clayton Oliver and how he might potentially get to a club like Geelong. There is no doubt that he’s looking for a move, there’s no doubt he’s looking over the fence and (asking) ‘is the grass greener anywhere else?’” said Ralph on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.
“I think the real problem right now is that there’s not a suitor for him. Not Geelong, not anyone else out there.
“So, I think after 10 years Melbourne might get to the end of the season and say ‘thanks for your service’, shake hands, if we can get a deal done it helps.”
But Ralph then explained the “mess” that Oliver’s contract makes any trade situation.
“But the money is true, it is as much as $1.7 million in 2030, and so the potential trade is a mess,” he said.
“No one’s made overtures. I think he would accept a pay-cut of maybe $200,000 but not $500,000, and if Melbourne wants to trade him, they’d have to pay half a million and they’d get a very late pick. They would get shafted both ways.
“They’ve got all the power right now (in a trade tug-of-war with Oliver), so it’s a really complicated move … it’s a long, long way from him being traded.”
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Lewis believes Oliver will remain at Melbourne beyond this season due to the obstruction the money situation presents.
“I think there’s clearly a lot that he needs to weigh up, and do you weigh up your mental health compared to your hip pocket? I think that’s a genuine conversation, because those numbers that Ralphy’s talking about, he would have to take, I would think, for another club to take him, a half-a-million-dollar pay-cut at least, per year. At least.
“(When you put it) in simple terms like that, I think it’s inevitable that he stays at Melbourne, and I don’t know what they need to work through to make sure that he’s happy and healthy in that environment, but I just think it would be too difficult to go somewhere else.”
This season, Oliver has played in all of the Dees’ games except last Saturday’s win over West Coast; absent for personal reasons.
On Nine’s Footy Classified, journalist Sam McClure reported Oliver was “frustrated with his lack of game-time”, citing three reasons why he didn’t play against the Eagles.
“There’s a myriad of reasons why (he didn’t play) … the biggest one, and the most glaring one … is that Clayton Oliver is frustrated with his lack of game-time that he’s being afforded (in) the Melbourne team right here, right now,” McClure said on Monday night.
Oliver averaged 88.9 per cent game-time during the 2021 season, but that number has steadily decreased to 78.5 per cent this year.
“This guy was, for a long time, one of the stars of the competition, and when he was doing that, he was playing high amount of game-time — high 80s per cent we’re talking about. We’re now in the 70s, and he’s frustrated, that’s one (of the reasons),” continued McClure.
“We know he’s frustrated at his own lack of form. He was told last year to clean up his act off the field, he feels that he’s done that. And the third (reason) is that the trade (last year) didn’t get through.
“And I think there’s a feeling from the Oliver camp (of) ‘well, if you’re going to keep me and hold me to my deal, then you can’t reduce the game-time by the amount that you’ve been doing it’.
“I think that’s at the heart of his frustrations and has led to a state in which he’s in — I’m not going to speak on behalf of Clayton — to feel that he didn’t really want to play on the weekend.
“Everyone at the club believes that he will be there tomorrow, and ideally, he’ll play against Hawthorn on the weekend.
“The interesting part is that they had the opportunity to trade him at the end of last year, and they were the ones that dangled him out there.”
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