FREMANTLE coach Mark Harvey has confirmed that midfielder Heath Black is close to retirement as the club weighs up if young gun Rhys Palmer needs knee surgery.

Black has not played with Fremantle since copping a two-week ban following the round 11 loss to the Brisbane Lions and has flagged his intentions to end his career.

Fremantle and Black are now negotiating a payout, with the 29-year-old contracted for 2009.

"It's been an interesting couple of days with that situation," Harvey said on Wednesday. "There are some finer details still to be worked out and Heath is certainly considering what is being projected out there in the media.

"A lot of things get out in football clubs these days, so I wasn’t blindsided by hearing Heath talking about it. I've had a number of conversations with him and he is his own person that will make his own decision.

"I've had some discussions with him about a number of things and he's got some issues that aren’t just about football. It's all about what he does now beyond football."

And NAB Rising Star favourite Palmer, who missed last Sunday's win over Melbourne, could still require surgery on damaged knee cartilage that would end his season.

However, club doctors will make that call based on how Palmer pulls up from training this week.

"Rhys will train today and tomorrow then we will assess where he's at," Harvey said. "The debate is whether or not he has an operation.

"We need to do what's best for Rhys at his age. He has a cartilage problem and the medical people will decide if he needs an operation at his age or not.

"If he doesn’t need surgery, he will continue to play. That decision will be made based on the severity of the pain he gets and he's been dealing with it for a while now.

"There might be an opportunity that he plays this weekend, but we will see how he pulls up from training."