{"id":665068,"date":"2026-05-12T02:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665068\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T02:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:10:26","slug":"michael-voss-resigns-as-coach-of-carlton-blues-amid-afl-clubs-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665068\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Voss resigns as coach of Carlton Blues amid AFL club\u2019s struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated May 12, 2026 \u2014 10:34am,first published May 12, 2026 \u2014 7:39am<\/p>\n

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Michael Voss has resigned as senior coach of the Carlton Football Club.<\/p>\n

This masthead confirmed it was a mutual decision, and that Voss made the call to step away before last Friday night\u2019s game against Brisbane at the Gabba, an 11-point loss that was one of the Blues\u2019 more competitive games for the season.<\/p>\n

A meeting was scheduled for Carlton staff at 10am, where they were to be officially informed of the decision.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Voss.via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Voss phoned captain Patrick Cripps to tell him about his resignation before the news broke publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been a great mentor and a great coach to me,\u201d the dual Brownlow medallist said after arriving at IKON Park. \u201cOur relationship\u2019s really strong and it\u2019s all I can really say now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammate Ollie Florent said he was sad to see Voss depart.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s Michael Voss, he\u2019s led by example for so long. I\u2019ve never had this many cameras in my face before. It\u2019s really sad to see him go,\u201d said Florent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Earlier, football director and club legend Greg Williams was forced to awkwardly navigate several laps of the car-park in his club-issued Hyundai before he eventually gave up and parked around the back.<\/p>\n

Voss is yet to be spotted at the club on Tuesday, while CEO Graham Wright and football boss Chris Davies were in early, collecting coffee orders and banana bread just before 8am before disappearing into the bowels of the club\u2019s administrative offices.<\/p>\n

Carlton will play the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night, with Josh Fraser to step in as interim coach.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Blues\u2019 only win this season was against Richmond in round one, by four points.<\/p>\n

They have lost seven games in a row and the pattern of giving up half-time leads proved debilitating for Carlton and for Voss.<\/a> In five of their eight losses this season, they were leading at half-time.<\/p>\n

The club has also been engulfed by controversy over young footballer Elijah Hollands, who experienced a mental health episode on the field<\/a> in round six but remained on the field until deep in the final term.<\/p>\n

The AFL fined Carlton $75,000 over the incident but did not find any individual responsible. Voss had launched a ferocious defence of Blues staff who had been caring for Hollands.<\/p>\n

\"CarltonCarlton Football Club CEO Graham Wright arrives at Princes Park on Tuesday as news emerges of Michael Voss\u2019 resignation as senior coach.Christopher Hopkins<\/p>\n

Last season the Carlton hierarchy, led by new CEO Graham Wright, only guaranteed that Voss would coach into 2026. His contract expires at the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Voss, the champion former Brisbane Lions player who led their dynasty in the early 2000s, took over as coach at the end of 2021 following the sacking of David Teague, beating Adam Kingsley to the position.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related\"Former<\/a><\/p>\n

The Blues famously narrowly missed the 2022 finals series by losing to Collingwood in the last round, and the following season Voss coached them to a preliminary final against Brisbane, his former club, following a massive season recovery when his position had appeared in peril.<\/p>\n

The Blues leadership backed him strongly but from the mid-point of the 2024 season, when they were in the top four, they slumped and were unable to recapture their 2023-early \u201924 peak.<\/p>\n

Their run of hot form can be traced to half-time of the round 17 match in 2024 against Greater Western Sydney. At that point of the season they were sitting second, more than a game ahead of third place. But they gave up a lead that day to lose to the Giants, and won just 12 of their next 40 matches before the agreement was reached on Friday to end Voss\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

Voss finishes with 103 games as Blues coach for 43 wins, 53 losses and one draw.<\/p>\n

He previously coached the Lions from 2009 to 2013.<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Gleeson<\/a> is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"JakeJake Niall<\/a> is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.\"SamSam McClure<\/a> is an award-winning AFL journalist and broadcaster.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated May 12, 2026 \u2014 10:34am,first published May 12, 2026 \u2014 7:39am Save You have reached your maximum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-665068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}