Melbourne’s reluctance to quash stunning trade speculation surrounding Clayton Oliver is due to the superstar’s “increasingly erratic behaviour” in recent weeks, according to SEN’s Sam Edmund, who reported the Dees have given their four-time club champion with an ultimatum.

Oliver is looming as the potential centrepiece of this year’s AFL trade period following reports rival clubs see the ball magnet as gettable, despite being contracted to Melbourne for another seven years on a contract worth around $7 million.

Adelaide and Essendon have already been linked to Oliver, who was an integral member of Melbourne’s drought-breaking 2021 premiership team, while he’s also won four club best and fairests, two AFLCA Champion Player of the Year awards and three All-Australian blazers.

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The relationship between Oliver and his own club reportedly deteriorated this season, primarily over the handling of his multiple injury setbacks and the rehab process.

Amid those tensions, foxfooty.com.au understands Oliver was late to his exit meeting and didn’t attend a post-season team meeting – the same one Brodie Grundy missed – due to illness.

Speaking on SEN on Thursday morning, Edmund stressed Oliver hadn’t lodged a trade request with Melbourne, nor had the Dees indicated they wanted to trade Oliver – “unless he makes it impossible to be retained”.

But Edmund shed more light on recent events that had led to bombshell trade speculation.

“I’ve got an update for you this morning on exactly where thing sit with this from a player point of a view and club point of view … The Melbourne Football Club have hit Clayton Oliver with an ultimatum: Shape up or ship off,” Edmund told SEN’s Mornings program.

“Fed-up Demons officials have told their troubled midfielder that they need a commitment from him – a renewed commitment – that he will once again conform to the standards and expectations that the club demands.

“They have made a series of demands to Oliver that include the need to treat club staff with respect, to treat teammates with respect, prepare the way that he should and to turn up to training in the proper condition.

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“It can be revealed that Melbourne’s reluctance – which we’ve all been curious about – to squash the frenzied trade talk surrounding the 26-year-old is exclusively due to its exasperation with Oliver’s increasingly erratic behaviour.

“Now Oliver is said to have lost his way at times during a difficult (2023) campaign interrupted by injury, but its his behaviour since the Dees’ straight-sets finals demise that has deeply concerned many at club headquarters.

“Sources I’ve spoken to with an intimate knowledge of this rocky Oliver-Demons relationship described this as football’s version of an intervention, rather than a push to the exit door.”

Edmund added that Oliver’s dissatisfaction with the Demons had been made known to sections of the AFL industry, which has prompted rival clubs to “smelling blood in the water” – to the point where some are “confident of pulling off an enormous trade coup”.

But the SEN reporter added that Oliver in recent days had shown “some willingness to return to the fold” and conceded his living arrangements and social lifestyle “perhaps haven’t been befitting of an AFL player”.

Oliver’s recent behaviour, according to Edmund, has forced the Dees to take “a harder stance” – a stance the club is “making no apologies for”.

“Demons officials have been eager to support, nurture and even protect Oliver as he navigated some challenges this year and in many cases they have done so on external advice,” Edmund said.