As debate rages over Scott Pendlebury’s six-figure merchandising deals for his record-breaking 433rd game, attention has turned to his future — and whether money will ultimately decide his path in retirement.

The 38-year-old has yet to announce whether he will play on into a 22nd AFL season with Collingwood.

Away from the Pies, Pendlebury is in his fourth year as a Haileybury assistant under Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd while he has dipped a toe back into the media waters as a guest commentator Channel 7.

And that may just prove to be a hint towards his future.

Two years ago Pendlebury openly declared coaching was his passion, saying it is “definitely the path that I will go down, it’s just whether I jump into it straight away”.

But in the same interviews he also cast doubt on locking himself into a relatively low-paid assistant role.

“I think from speaking to a lot of people in the industry, it’s probably not as attractive as it once was, say 10-15 years ago,” Pendlebury said at the time.

“To be brutally honest, I think financially, with the (reduced) soft cap, it’s taken a massive hit. A lot of these guys (assistant coaches) are doing a power of work for not much reward. So, that’s probably why guys aren’t going down that path.

“And you look at the amount of people that have gone into the media because, probably financially, it’s paying a lot better than doing the assistant coaching hours that these guys put in.

“But then it comes back to your passion as well, and my passion is in coaching. Even coaching the school footy kids that I coach, and I love doing that and turning up for training and working with Lloydy as well, and guys like that.”

The Agenda Setters’ Tom Morris now reports Pendlebury has “cooled even further” on the idea of linking up with an AFL club as an assistant coach in the future.

“It would now be a huge surprise to people around him if he coaches at all,” Morris added.

“I think he wants to get in media and have other business ventures, but at this point coaching’s not on his radar.”

Port Adelaide premiership player Kane Cornes, who knows the different options well after going down the media path while his brother Chad went into coaching, said Pendlebury will be “excellent at whatever he does”.

But he said the possibility that clubland will miss out on Pendlebury’s expertise is disappointing.

“It’s a shame for the game. It’s alarm bells once again for the AFL,” Cornes added.

The Agenda Setters host Craig Hutchison flagged one rare option: “He’ll be a senior coach, just not by (being) an assistant coach (first). That’s what will happen.”

Morris noted “no one ever does that any more” while St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt and veteran journalist Caroline Wilson questioned the prediction.

“No, Craig, he can’t. Who’s doing that? Who’s taking that punt?” Riewoldt said.

Wilson asked: “As a senior coach out of the media, after what happened with Michael Voss the first time around (at Brisbane) and James Hird (at Essendon)?”

Hutchison said a year or two in the media plus school coaching could still set up Pendlebury for success.

“You think Haileybury’s a good training ground to go and be the senior coach at Carlton, do you?” Wilson posed again.

Hutchison replied: “He’ll find a different path ... I think Scott Pendlebury has the ability to be a senior coach without being an assistant on everything you’ve seen and heard from him on and off the field in the last five or six years.”

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