In-demand Bomber Michael Hurley remains undecided on his future and, while the club is working hard to win him over, will not force him or any of the banned players to stay if they want a fresh start, says Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Michael Hurley, Michael Hibberd, Jobe Watson, Ben Howlett and Tayte Pears are the remaining members of the "Essendon 12" yet to confirm what they intend to do beyond season 2016.
With the signing of "spiritual leader" Brent Stanton on Wednesday, Essendon now have seven confirmed starters next year of the players currently serving year-long doping bans – Stanton, Dyson Heppell, Cale Hooker, Travis Colyer, Tom Bellchambers, Heath Hocking and David Myers.
Speculation surrounding the futures of Hurley and Hibberd remains particularly intense with the former reportedly being chased by a host of rival clubs and the latter strongly linked with a move to Melbourne.
The pair are contracted to Essendon until the end of 2017.
While Campbell wouldn't begrudge either of those players leaving Essendon, given the hellish last four years they have been through as a result of the club's ill-fated supplement program, he would want a "reasonable return" in any trades.
Those comments follow on from club great Matthew Lloyd declaring earlier in the week that the Bombers would want an Alex Rance-type player in exchange for Hurley.
"You'd be trying to facilitate a trade," Campbell told SEN when asked what he would do if Hurley wanted to leave the club.
"In the work that we've done with the AFL and others, the grievance process we don't think is that option working with those parties.
"And a lot of their (players') management groups have indicated if they did want to go, they'd work to a trade with the club.
"You want players that want to be at your football club. Particularly given the period of time we've been through, if a player said that they didn't feel they could come back to the football club with everything that had happened, of course we work with them to go to another club but we'd also ensure that the club got a reasonable return in exchange for that player leaving a contract early and that's really important."
However, Campbell remained confident that Hurley would remain a Bomber.
"We've had discussions for a pretty significant period of time now. We always felt like it was going to take varying amounts of time with each player to get to a position that they felt they were comfortable to come back to the football club," Campbell said.
"We're not pressing that any further than what we feel is appropriate and that's why they've been so staggered.
"Hurls is very close with his teammates, (there's a) strong association with that group. They've been through a very challenging period together.
"There's still some work to be done to get Hurls there but we remain confident in the position that we've got."
