RETIRED Brisbane Lions' champion Michael Voss has begun actively working towards an AFL coaching career, privately attending an executive leadership and coaching course at Melbourne University since March.

Voss, who turns 32 in July, has revealed that he enrolled in the course at the university's Melbourne Business School with a view to "mapping out a pathway" towards a senior coaching position.

While he stopped short of declaring himself on the coaching market, he said last night: "If the opportunity comes and you want to do it then you want to be ready. I'm not just going to sit on my hands until the end of the year. If it unfolds, it unfolds. Until then I can't remain idle."

Voss, twice the All-Australian captain, has long been widely regarded as a rare example of a player who could take on a senior coaching position without the customary assistant coaching apprenticeship.

That view was endorsed by the AFL after Voss's recent trip to South Africa as an assistant coach with the Australian Institute of Sport-AFL Academy squad.

Singing the praises of both Voss and his academy colleague Jason McCartney, the league's game development boss, David Matthews said: "Michael Voss was a natural."

Of his work with the future AFL stars in the AIS-AFL Academy — a group Voss oversaw in blocks last October, December, January and in South Africa in April — the retired star said: "I do love it."

He made no secret of his desire to coach full-time, adding: "What you eventually miss is that you only get those kids for a short period of time. You can only make a certain amount of adjustments to them in that period of time, which is a frustration."

The AFL's Matthews added: "The respect and interest he showed in the players and their families was of a similar level to the respect they had for him. And the report he prepared for (AIS-AFL Academy coach) Alan McConnell showed a deep level of interest in all the players.

"The thing for him will be for how long these stints are going to satisfy him and at what point he looks for the week-to-week challenge of AFL coaching. I think that's what he's talking about."

Forced out of the game in 2006 because of chronic knee problems, Voss technically remains a Brisbane player until the end of this season but has deliberately distanced himself from the Lions' day-to-day operation in a bid to adjust to life after football.

During his playing days he publicly doubted that he would seek out a career as an AFL coach but has changed that view over recent times.

Of his famously competitive nature and recent public comments which pointed to a career as a senior coach, Voss said: "It's still there. It's definitely still there. But I'm loving doing what I'm doing at the moment and the media has definitely been more enjoyable than I thought.

"The commentary every weekend is fantastic and it's also a great educational tool for me, keeping me in touch with the game as an unbiased observer. People tell me the first year out is the worst. If this is the worst it gets then it's heaps easier than I thought it might be."

Voss, a Sunday Age columnist and commentator on radio station 3AW, has signed a two-year contract with the Ten Network that is understood to include a get-out clause.

Should he be offered, and accept, a full-time coaching position his contract stipulates that he advise Ten by October 2007.

The 289-game Brownlow medallist made an impressive debut as a TV special commentator and is also a regular sportscaster for Channel Ten in Brisbane.

While he has been touted as a potential replacement for Leigh Matthews in years to come, Voss has also been unofficially connected to Carlton — the club he supported as a child, and which sounded him out for an assistant's position last year — and the Kangaroos, who are looking to increase their profile in Queensland. Several other coaches — Kevin Sheedy, Neale Daniher and Chris Connolly — come out of contract at the end of 2007.

The three-time premiership captain flew to Melbourne two nights ago for the latest in a series of three-day in-house seminars at the business school which Voss is funding himself.

"I come to Melbourne to do the course part-time," said Voss. "You do a certain amount of contact hours and a lot of study at home.

"I must say I've been away from home a lot more this year than I had planned but this business course is part of a plan mapping out a pathway to what I might do in the future."