Outgoing Richmond coach Terry Wallace says his bitter parting with the Western Bulldogs in 2002 came about because of the AFL club's determination to severely strip back the football department at the time.

Wallace, who publicly apologised for the acrimonious split earlier this week, said he made his decision to leave within days of chief executive Campbell Rose arriving at the club with a "mandate to strip the footy department".

"The club was really struggling, they needed to take probably $1.5 million out of the footy department, there was question about whether I'd go on in 12 months time," Wallace told the Nine Network's AFL Footy Show on Thursday night.

"I coached that weekend, went back to the club on Monday, went back to (president) David (Smorgon) and Campbell and said that if they were going to strip all the assistant coaches I'd built up over six years that was going to have us at loggerheads for the next 12 months."

He said in the two days following Rose's appointment his manager checked the possibility of him gaining a head coaching job elsewhere and had gained an understanding he could move into the then-vacant job at the Sydney Swans.

But Wallace said there had never been a formal agreement signed with the Swans, who eventually gave the job to caretaker coach Paul Roos.

"There was no heads of agreement but my management were in a position where we thought we had an availability to go to Sydney Swans," he said.

Wallace said he, Rose and Smorgon agreed that he would leave the Bulldogs to take that opportunity.

"If they allowed me to step away and have an opportunity at another club they would be able to get rid of my contract straight off and they would also at the same time be in a situation where they could do whatever they needed to do in relation to the funds at the club," he said.

"We shook hands on the Monday night and that was accepted as being the way that it was going to go forward."

He expected to coach out the final game of the season, but after the Bulldogs players found out about the decision they angrily voted he should leave without guiding them into that match.

Wallace said the Bulldogs "slapped a writ" on him at the time preventing him from speaking publicly about how the situation unfolded and he never had a chance to give his side of the story to the players.

"Both sides didn't handle the whole thing very well at all, so many people got hurt," he said.

"I got hurt, I know Western Bulldogs people won't believe that, but I got hurt, I believe my reputation got hurt.

"I believe that not even to a degree did the players know what went on ... I had no opportunity to speak to the playing group at a time, it caused an inordinate amount of problems to a lot of people."

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