Cutting through the AFL Trade Period jargon to reveal what clubs really mean
From ‘due dilligence’ to ‘going nuclear’ — it seems AFL clubs are speaking in code at times during the trade period. We cut through the junk to find hidden meaning behind the lingo.
It is the season of bulldust and talking your way around what you really mean.
As AFL clubs, players and managers ease their way towards the trade deadline, you will hear trade terms popping up over and over.
Clubs do ‘due diligence’ on ‘required players’ while others ‘explore options’ to ‘go nuclear’ and ‘exercise their rights’ before the trades ‘go down to the wire’.
To cut through the junk, these are the trade terms you hear over and over and what they really mean.
TRADE PERIOD: ALL THE ACTION FROM DAY THREE LIVE
DUE DILIGENCE
It was a big few days for ‘due diligence’ at the start of the trade period.
This just means a club has started talking about whether a player fits with them but they are not ready to go public, generally because that player carries a behavioural issue somewhere in his past.
So due diligence is more about the off-field than just Googling a player’s AFL Tables stats.
Clayton Oliver has undergone multiple rounds of due diligence in the past week, as has Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
Trade Q&A: Get your questions answered!
EXPLORE HIS OPTIONS
A big moment for exploring of options came when Melbourne put out news on Oliver that “if he wants to explore his options in the upcoming AFL trade period, we will respect that”.
When a player is told he can ‘explore his options’, he is being told his manager needs to find him a new club because we want to ship him and his contract out of here.
A six pack of fearless option explorers: Clayton Oliver, Steven May, Mason Cox, Tom Mitchell, Elijah Hollands, Jack Steele.
REQUIRED PLAYER
The opposite of option exploring, the required player is one that club is clinging on to.
Of course there are required players and there are really required players.
Hawk Henry Hustwaite has played 10 games in three years but is seen as a required player because if Sam Mitchell has to get to plan D at some point in 2026, Hustwaite will be called upon.
Here are some required players of yesteryear: Stefan Martin, Marcus Adams, Robbie Warnock, Ken McGregor, Lance Picioane, Justin Murphy, Ian Perrie and Nathan Vardy.
Christian Petracca won the ultimate required player honour on Monday when Dees list boss Tim Lamb named him a “contracted superstar”.
Required players can be got by rivals, but they wont be handed over for nothing, so you better come with something good if you want him.
PAPERWORK LODGED/FILED
A journo has been told the intricate details of a deal but the AFL computer is rebooting so it hasn’t officially gone through yet.
Port Adelaide was confused for three days that free agent Jacob Wehr’s paperwork was lodged but seemingly lost in an email somewhere between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.
A cousin of the paperwork being filed or lodged is the ‘trade will go through tomorrow’.
UNLOCK THE DEAL
The two clubs didn’t have the right pieces to sort out a simple swap so called a list manager they like to help them get it done.
Fremantle recently unlocked the deal for Brandon Starcevich between Brisbane and West Coast by jumping in and jangling the keys of draft picks to open the door.
Welcome back west Brandon 🦅
— West Coast Eagles (@WestCoastEagles) October 8, 2025
Brandon Starcevich Joins West Coast via a three club trade.
Powered by Tyrepower WA pic.twitter.com/7Yw2i1lxrD
REACHED OUT/ASKED THE QUESTION
At some point, among the hundreds of phone calls player managers have with list managers, someone quietly said: “Hey, would he ever, in a million years, be interested in moving to our club?”.
The answer was no.
Think about the mini-shockwave around Nick Daicos on Tuesday.
If the answer isn’t immediately ‘no’ then we get into ‘had his head turned’ territory, before it moves to ‘interested in a meeting’.
GOING NUCLEAR
Pardon the pun, but this term exploded when Zach Merrett began looking at the Essendon exit.
It means a player is not only keen to get out despite his club holding on to him, he is so desperate he will drop a bomb on his current club just so he can climb out of the rubble.
Think leaking stories to media, bad mouthing the team, and generally agitating as much as possible to make the relationship so sour, a divorce is the only option.
EXERCISE HIS RIGHTS
Is there any reason a free agent is always exercising his rights?
Oscar Allen exercised his way to Brisbane, and even Charlie Spargo exercised across town to North Melbourne.
It just means the free agent has signed with a new club.
OFFICIAL TRADE REQUEST
It’s a dance Zach Merrett and Charlie Curnow are doing right now.
The player’s camp and the club can both hide behind not having an ‘official’ trade request by pretending the player doesn’t actually want to leave.
Take Roos list boss Brady Rawlings on skipper Jy Simpkin: “There has been no request for a trade, there hasn’t been one since the end of our season and we stand here on day one of trade period and there still isn’t one. We deal with the facts.”
Dons list boss Matt Rosa ticked a few boxes when he said Merrett is “a required player” and even if a request does come “nothing will change from our end”.
In reality, the player and his manager are yet to put in that proper request because they either haven’t found a new home, or that new home is still unsure they have enough to get a deal done and discussions will be ongoing between clubs and managers until then.
Once the suitor is sure they can fulfil the request, the list manager’s phone will buzz.
GOOD DIALOGUE
Another one from the Merrett saga.
A player wants to go and has been calling the club reiterating that, and the club is still answering those calls to talk him off the ledge.
Rosa said there had been “good dialogue” with Merrett, and Merrett said on Brownlow night “we have had a lot of conversations”.
Like an Aaron Sorkin script, dialogue is always good, until someone stops answering calls.
DOWN TO THE WIRE
The list managers of the two clubs in question are going to ghost for a few days and then chat on Wednesday morning to ensure the trade isn’t done until the final five minutes.
Good for business on many fronts – means the club can say is negotiated to the death and the league has a juicy player still in limbo in the final minutes.
IT WILL BE TOUGH
Never say never, but yeah, this trade ain’t happening.
WISH HIM WELL
When your club puts out the press release that was prepared days earlier to “farewell” a player who has been traded, usually the list manager or footy boss will “wish him and his family well”.
Really, the club is not going to think about that player nor wish him well, ever again.
But if they hold on to him …
HE’S A PROFESSIONAL
No, this isn’t about a hit man.
Watch for this phrase from a club when one of the contracted big fish of this period don’t reach a new home.
Suddenly that player will be touted something like this: “He is a professional who is ready to get back to work on the first day of pre-season”.
In other words, he had his heart set on getting out of his club and is shattered he has to trudge back in next month.
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Originally published as Cutting through the AFL Trade Period jargon to reveal what clubs really mean
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