Nope you're wrong, if McGovern, us and the team he wants to go to agree to a trade we can trade him.
Adelaide never matched Dangerfield's offer, they just heavily implied they would which is why Geelong came up with a trade for him.
That's not how it works tho and again that's not a like for like situation .
Step 1. McGovern accepts free agency offer, west coast have 3 days to match
If we match there's two options.
1. We keep him with the offer that was prestented by club A
2. We trade as we make it clear we will match ala the cats.
The difference to the Dangerfield situation is that danger wanted to go home and cats were morally obliged to obligate. They had no issues with the $$$$ of the contract and would have gladly paid that. And that sir is where this is a much different case .
In this scenario we match the contract and bam gov gets what he wanted all along a big fat contact at our club. He doesn't wanna go home, he is home. Again, unless I haven't made it clear yet, we just agreed to pay him the amount we didn't wanna pay so why would he leave.
The geelong case was a specially case and not relevant to gov. Again like I mentioned earlier, if this was gaff I would agree its relevant. If you think we have the right to force a trade then you don't really understand the concept of free agency.
Don't be ignorant, were not going to clean up from gov leaving. Free agency isn't a mechanism to benefit clubs, it's just some clubs cashed in when the rule was in it's infancy (dees, saints etc) and have made people naive.
Buddy leaving and Hawks getting pick 19 in return is a more what free agency is about . The fact clubs can manipulate is based on player needs (aka danger) shows it still has flaws and maybe the idea of compo just needs to **** right off.