Victorian clubs have long coveted Ben King’s signature, and right now, the Suns still haven’t secured their key forward’s. But King made clear in Darwin last Thursday that he intended to stick with his teammates at the Gold Coast.
King, who is viewed as the game’s most attractive 2026 free agent outside of Zak Butters, said that sticking with the Suns – a club he loved – had always been his plan.
“I love the club and, yeah, that stuff’s just figuring itself out I suppose in the background,” King said, when asked about his contractual position and other matters in a sit-down interview with this masthead.
“And I’m trying to play good football.”
Would he be with the Suns next year? “Yeah … I mean, that’s always been the plan. I’ve spoken for a long time that I love the football club, and I’m really passionate about where we’re heading.
“And obviously there’s things that that have to be worked through. But yeah, I’m pretty confident with where it all sits.”
Gold Coast’s expectation is that King will sign another short-term deal of two years, making him an unrestricted free agent in 2028. He currently leads the Coleman Medal tally with 33 goals, ahead of Jack Gunston (30) and Jeremy Cameron (27).
King has been the subject of speculation about moving back to Melbourne since he was drafted, when his twin brother Max’s club, St Kilda, made a cheeky reference to reuniting the brothers. The interest was heightened by the fact that he has only signed two-year contract extensions.
Collingwood, a keen suitor, have dropped off King in recognition of his desire to stay put.
“I get the long-term stuff as well, and the security that gives and yeah, maybe in time that will be an option,” King explained.
“To be honest, there’s no one glaring reason on why I’ve done it [two-year deals]. It’s sort of just the advice I’ve been given.”
King said he trusted his agent, Robbie D’Orazio, with navigating his contracts. And he had not met with rival clubs during his free agency year, as players increasingly do.
“I haven’t spoken to anyone, and I leave that completely to my management to deal with that side of it.
“I just focus on playing good football. But yeah, I guess other guys would feel more comfortable exploring, and would feel the need to explore another option, which I haven’t.”
The Suns had needed to show King, and others, that they were becoming a good team, “particularly early” in his AFL career. “I never really felt like I was going to leave, but yeah, then the club was still a fair way off for a while,” he said.
For King, mateship is elevated even over team success, which is not necessarily the standard view. Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell, whom he views as catalysts for the Suns’ rise under Damien Hardwick, are among his closest mates.
“I feel like mateship’s the one … you can kind of always work towards success. I think back [in the] early days at the Suns, we weren’t close to success, but what really kept me around was that I’d forged some really strong friendships with a lot of the boys.
“And I was confident in the future that we would get to a point where we’d have success, but I suppose a big element is who you want to have success with.”
King and his brother had always played together in juniors at East Sandringham, in the under-18 competition and Victorian teams, and at Haileybury College. For Ben, the move north afforded him a chance to create an identity separate from twinship.
For the King boys, it was a case of ’till draft do us part. They had never not played in the same team until the AFL.
“The best thing for me as a person and football wise [is] that I … came up here and, yeah, forged my own identity a bit, learnt about living away from home and making new friends and all that stuff, which was all really new to me.
“I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
King added: “I still love the identity that I have with my brother and being a King brother, I suppose. But I think growing up, we’ve been a part of the same teams and locker rooms that we’ve had the same group of mates all through school, coming all the way through and yeah … we didn’t sort of have many experiences that were independent to one or the other. Not really.”
Ben has been the more fortunate son on the injury front. He tore his anterior cruciate ligament in pre-season of 2022, but otherwise has played with minimal interruptions, in contrast to his luckless brother at St Kilda.
“There’s a big element of luck involved,” said King of injury in the AFL. “I’ve been really lucky.”
He admired his brother’s attitude in the face of his repeated setbacks. “It’s hard to speak on what’s caused anything … I obviously know him better than anyone, and know how hard he works with his body, and how committed he is to his football stuff,” Ben said.
“It’s just a lot of bad luck, really.
“He’s a really resilient guy, and yeah, he’s had a really tough couple of years, but he’s got great people around him, and no doubt he would have had his moments over the last year or so. But … it’s impressive. He just keeps on chipping away and trying to stay positive.”
Retaining optimism, in the face of insufficient progress, had once been Ben’s lot.
“We had some grim years early in my career, those first few, and I still loved being a part of it – loved the group of guys, and was pretty positive about the direction we were heading. And I probably thought it was going to come sooner than it has, but it really feels like it’s here now.”
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Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X or email.
