Western Bulldogs and Collingwood settle Adam Treloar contract dispute

Collingwood might have offloaded a portion of Adam Treloar’s salary — but nowhere near as much as it had hoped. Here’s what the Pies will be paying for five years.

The Bulldogs will pay $600,000 a season of Adam Treloar’s five-year contract, with the Magpies to foot the remaining $300,000 a year. Picture: NCA NewsWire

Collingwood has failed in its bid to force the Western Bulldogs to stump up extra cash for star recruit Adam Treloar.

The Dogs held their ground and will not be paying Treloar a cent more than a five-year, $600,000-a-season contract agreed last month with the cast-off Magpies midfielder.

A resolution to the contract dispute reached on Friday means the remaining $1.5 million owed to Treloar over the next five years will be paid to him by the Magpies.

But the Bulldogs have agreed to front-end some of Treloar’s first-year wages in a bid to assist Collingwood in managing its salary cap.

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Pies football chiefs raised eyebrows after the Treloar trade went through by claiming the Dogs had agreed to further negotiations over how much his new club would be contributing to his total wages.

Treloar was traded to the Bulldogs along with picks 26, 33 and 42 in exchange for the Dogs’ No. 14 pick and a future second-round selection in the last minute of last month’s trade period.

Official contract documents will be filed with the AFL in the coming days. Treloar will now have separate contracts with the Dogs and also with Collingwood.

Collingwood’s trade period calamity – losing Jaidy Stephenson, Tom Phillips, Atu Bosenavulagi and Treloar for little compensation – has been off-set by a strong night at the draft table, where the club secured five young stars within the first 31 selections.

Highly-fancied father-son prospect Nick Daicos, son of club legend Peter Daicos, is also a certainty to join his brother Josh at the club in next year’s draft.

The Bulldogs will pay $600,000 a season of Adam Treloar’s five-year contract, with the Magpies to foot the remaining $300,000 a year. Picture: NCA NewsWire

The day after he was traded, Treloar revealed how hurt he was by Collingwood’s treatment of him at the end of the 2020 season.

The Western Bulldogs recruit said he was shocked to be told by Magpies coach Nathan Buckley that teammates did not want him, given the strong relationships he had built across five seasons at Collingwood.

“To be told that, when I don’t think that’s the truth, and to be told that there’s some players that don’t want you there when I know the majority of the players love me and care for me, that did hurt a bit,” he said.

“But they were adamant on moving me on, so no matter how they were going to go about it, it was going to happen. It was a fight up until the end, because I wanted to be at Collingwood.”