HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says the club won't be stretching beyond what they can reasonably afford to keep superstar Lance Franklin.
Greater Western Sydney are reportedly preparing to offer the two-time Coleman medallist a six-year $9million deal.
That could potentially be bumped up even further by the AFL, who would consider paying Franklin to be an ambassador for the competition if he makes the move north.
Clarkson said the Hawks, whose offer is believed to be around $1million per season, won't be drawn into a bidding war as it could squeeze other players out and damage their premiership chances.
"If he chooses to go and there's AFL money that gets added to it at the end of it then that's for the AFL and Bud to work out," the Hawks coach told the Nine Network's Footy Show on Thursday night.
"But just from our point of view we'll offer what we think we can offer as a club relative to our salary cap.
"We don't want to cannibalise our own system too much.
"Once it stretches beyond what we can afford then we'll happily have to push ourselves out of the market.
"You've got to do that in a sense if you want to stay in that premiership window and keep relative with your salary cap in terms of paying your players a pretty fair amount.
"We've got some good players and we don't want to lose those guys all for the sake of just keeping one."
Clarkson said while the Hawks wanted to know Franklin's intentions as soon as possible, they were resigned to the fact that his decision might not come until after the season.
He said the conjecture didn't appear to be having an effect on Franklin or his teammates, with the fact that they have won their past nine games helping.
"We'll just deal with it as we go," Clarkson said.
"Our attitude all along has been whilst he's a contracted player at the Hawthorn footy club we hope he can do his best he can for his side and help us try to win a flag this year."
Clarkson said the Hawks remained "pretty hopeful" Franklin would stay.
