The 34-year-old Sydney FC striker has signed a one-year playing deal while transitioning to a backroom role, where he'll assume a pivotal coaching role in the club's first NYL side in season seven of the A-League starting in 2011.

"It's a great day in terms of starting to build a culture at Melbourne Heart and building a pathway for players and in this case for John Aloisi to hopefully become one of the next great coaches," Heart CEO Scott Munn told au.fourfourtwo.com today.

Aloisi will play next season for Heart while learning all he can about coaching. That process includes taking coaching courses during next season as he learns the ropes under the highly credentialed John van't Schip.

The former Sydney FC marquee won't be Heart's marquee and the club insists the squad isn't being created around a highly-paid central superstar , said Munn.

"It's not something that's high on our agenda, we're looking at putting together a team that's going to be competitive and we're certainly comfortable with that at this point.

"We're open to a marquee but it's not a driving factor."

Coach John van't Schip has recently returned from South America and the club say more signings both international and local are imminent ahead of the start of pre-season around April 10.