Sydney Swans defender Ted Richards believes loyalty in the AFL will become a thing of the past once free agency is introduced at the end of this season.
Under the new system a player that has served eight or more years at a club is eligible to receive offers from rival clubs and are free to change teams without a trade.
Richards, who began his career at Essendon before being traded to Sydney, isn't sure what's going to happen when free agency begins but conceded that club loyalty is likely to diminish.
"It's a bit of an unknown. You see it happening in the sports in the northern hemisphere but it's an unknown here," he said on Thursday afternoon.
"Pretty happy that Sam Reid signed up to a long-term deal personally, but I can't talk about what's going to happen in five years, we've all got to guess on what it's going to be like then."
"I hope that the loyalty does remain, but with more and more players moving around each year it seems like it could be heading that way, but that's just a guess."
Richards did acknowledge the upside of free agency, but doesn't want to see quality young players leave his club after so much work having been put into them.
"I think in certain cases it will help, like if you want to go back home or something it probably does give the opportunity for a player to push that through because clubs always tend to go back and forth in negotiations and some things don't tend to pan out," he said.
"If it can help players in extreme cases like that ... but on the other hand you never want to see young good players leave your club when you've put so much time and effort into them."
"It's the nature of the game. You try and balance up your respect for the club and what they've done for you, but also at the same time thinking what's good for you in the future."
Meanwhile, Richards said the Swans will be putting more effort into their NAB Cup campaign compared to previous years and can't wait to get out there and play against St Kilda and Geelong on Friday night.
"We're down here and we want to get back to what we do well and that's just play that hard football. We've been practising it all pre-season so we're not going to be trying to do anything different," he said.
"As always we're playing to get better for the real season and I think this NAB Cup is different to previous years in that once you're knocked out it becomes a totally different game. But now we stay in the system whether we win or lose. I think we're always in there to get ourselves right for Round 1 but we're also there to win."