McGuire was a vocal adversary at Monday's annual grand final-week talks between the 18 clubs and the AFL Commission, questioning where the upside was for the Magpies in the contentious carve-up of the rich new six-year media agreement.

McGuire's view had been shared by West Coast chairman Alan Cransberg, who told Fairfax Media over the weekend: "We've got a two-and-a-half-billion-dollar deal and I'd like to think we'd all benefit from that," was the assessment of Cransberg, who said he would not overly push his protest until after scheduled talks with Gillon McLachlan this week.

"I understand we won't get as much as others and I'm relaxed about that, but in principle it just doesn't seem fair to me. We've helped create that deal, we've contributed to it."

With clubs still awaiting next month's written confirmation of their new annual AFL dividends, the league has confirmed its removal of the wealth tax making way for a radical new push to close the cap between the richer and poorer clubs.

While the wealthiest four clubs — West Coast, Hawthorn, Fremantle and Collingwood — will receive less than an extra $500,000 next year, the poorest clubs will be granted more than $20 million in ongoing annual dividends. Those clubs are headed by the two expansion clubs, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, along with the Brisbane Lions and St Kilda.

The extra funding to the poorer clubs will come before the purchase of Etihad Stadium, which will further significantly benefit the Saints along with the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne.

Despite Collingwood's and — to a lesser extent — West Coast's, Hawthorn's and Fremantle's disenchantment, the new distribution of the broadcast rights funding has been largely accepted by the clubs although there is lingering concern regarding the pay dispute between the league and the players. The Magpies had unsuccessfully pushed for close to $1 million more than the league had initially allocated the club.

West Coast, Hawthorn and Fremantle remained disappointed but were more circumspect in heeding the new AFL model.

The AFL has frozen the soft cap on football department spending despite the extra billions coming into the game in a bid to lower inflation. It has refused club requests — notably one an impassioned written deposition by Sydney coach John Longmire — to remove welfare costs such as psychologists' wages from the football department cap.

In a win for the West Australian clubs, however, the AFL has recognised the extra travel costs incurred by West Coast and Fremantle and rolled those into respective football spending budgets along with small increased dividends.

Outgoing Eagles chairman Cransberg and his long-serving CEO Trevor Nisbett continued to argue their case in talks with McLachlan on Monday. "If you want true equalisation," said Cransberg, "you've got to take into account the contingencies we face and the extra costs we face every time we have to attend an away game or major meeting or function."

Fremantle had been one of the more vocal opponents to the new investment model, disappointed that they would reap nothing extra in real terms from the $2.5 billion six-year media deal but have now negotiated a small extra annual uplift estimated in the low six figures.

"It's not what we had hoped," admitted Dockers chief Steve Rosich of his club's forecast annual dividend, "but it's in the realms of what we were expecting."