Essendon has had no activity in this year’s AFL Trade Week after the Club was unable to secure a suitable trade for midfielder Bachar Houli.

General manager of football operations Paul Hamilton said despite being unable to come to suitable trade arrangement, Houli has indicated his intentions to leave Essendon next season.

“Bachar has made it very clear that he wants to leave and I know there has been a lot of conjecture as to why,” Hamilton told essendonfc.com.au.

“James Hird met up with him last Thursday in an effort to convince him to stay but wasn’t successful.

“The reality is, Bachar has been offered a significant contract at Richmond and certainly one that we were unable to match. It is a lot more than we could or would offer him.

“In the end he has made it very clear that he wants to leave Essendon to go to Richmond.”

Hamilton said the trade that was tabled by the Richmond Football Club for Houli was of no value to the Essendon Football Club.

“We haven’t been able to secure a suitable trade for Bachar,” Hamilton said.

“They (Richmond) were offering a fourth round pick and then later offered us a third round pick (number 46).”

Hamilton said the Club plans to use only three selections in the national draft, making Richmond’s final offer of a third round draft pick (number 46), not one worth considering.

“Adrian Dodoro, our recruiting manager, had been working to secure a deal that would provide us with a second round draft pick (number 29) but Richmond wasn’t prepared to do that,” Hamilton said.

“The compensation that Richmond was offering us wouldn’t have made any difference to us or assisted us in any way due to us only having three picks in the draft.

“It wasn’t something that was worth considering.”

Hamilton said the Club now expects Houli to nominate for the AFL National Draft or the Pre-season draft.