Carlton has landed West Coast premiership coach Adam Simpson in a part-time coaching mentor role for 2026.

As first reported by Seven’s Mitch Cleary, Simpson will join the Blues’ revamped footy department and assist senior coach Michael Voss and his team.

It’s believed Simpson has been in talks with several Victorian clubs before ultimately settling on joining Carlton.

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The 49-year old is set to retain his media commitments in 2026.

Speaking on SEN on Wednesday, Simpson described it as more of a coaching mentoring and consultancy role, as opposed to being part of the coaching team.

“It keeps me connected a bit to club land. But to be honest, I didn’t want it getting in the way of the media stuff, so a bit of a balance of the two,” Simpson said.

“Looing forward to it, it’s probably more about structure and process, rather than strategy and winning, to put it into context.

“It’s pretty low key. It might be a couple of times a month during the season. From my point of view if I was the coaching group and Michael, it’d be a bit heavier in pre-season while they set up stuff.

“I would’ve loved to compared notes with other coaches back in the day. I think it’s an opportunity for the club to get a bit of a different view on some of the things they do.”

Adam Simpson has landed a new role at Carlton (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Questions are sure to be asked about whether this is Simpson’s first step towards getting back into coaching, particularly with Voss facing an uncertain future at Ikon Park beyond 2026.

So, is Simpson keen to return to the hot set?

“It could seem that way, but it’s not. I’m at the club to help Michael and the coaching group,” Simpson continued.

“There’s a pretty new coaching group and everyone’s in a different role.

“The strategy around that is just to pass on some knowledge of what worked well for me at West Coast — and what also didn’t work well — and be a bit of a sounding board that’s independent.

“At club land, every now and then, you get caught in this group think … I know I would’ve appreciated something like that, someone one out, one back, just to give a bit of an opinion on what they see.”

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He added with a laugh: “The coaching stuff looks really hard!

“I’m doing a lot consultancy work and I see this as another opportunity to help people. So not necessarily (looking to get back into coaching).

“It’s not giving me reason to jump back in, it’s just a bit of an opportunity to help a new coaching group form and grow over the pre-season and a bit over the season as well.”

It follows an overhaul of Carlton’s footy department following a disappointing 2025 season including long-time Port Adelaide head of football Chris Davies replacing Brad Lloyd.

Leigh Adams and Josh Fraser have meanwhile joined the Blues’ coaching staff, which Aaron Hamill departed and Jordan Russell moved into development.

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“We’re really pleased to bring someone of Adam’s experience into the club,” Davies said.

“He’s a coach who has a whole heap of experience and is a premiership coach. His role won’t be player-facing, it’ll well and truly be behind the scenes with Michael and the rest of the coaching group. Michael and I have been talking to Adam over the past period of time, and it’s clear that he wants to give something back again. The timing really works well.

“For Michael, it’ll be an objective eye and someone who Michael can talk to from time to time to get an objective view of what’s going on here at the footy club. For the broader coaching group, we really want to continue to invest in their development, so we believe having someone like Adam who can help from a coaching perspective with a broader assistant and development coaching group will be another thing that will be fantastic for them.

“Overall, it’s to have someone who can give their experience, the benefit of a significant amount of experience while also making sure it’s an objective view. We don’t want Adam to get too in-depth so there’s any groupthink, it’s really Adam sits one out and one back and it can be another objective view to our football department.”

Simpson coached West Coast in 10 and a half seasons including its famous 2018 premiership triumph.

He was sacked by the Eagles midway through the 2024 season and has since split his time between Melbourne and Perth including joining Fox Footy in 2025.

The 306-gamer won two premierships during a decorated playing career at North Melbourne.