The former Socceroo is back in Australia and Heart officials have sounded him out about getting involved with the club.

Those discussions remain open but there is no chance of Viduka pulling on his boots for the club.

"We spoke to him about playing, but he doesn't want to," Heart chief executive Scott Munn told the Herald Sun. "We didn't even get to a negotiation stage with him because we had only discussed the possibility.

"He said he's happy to keep chatting about other things, but he made it quite clear he is not interested in playing. He has his head in a different space now (away from football)."

One man who could yet pull on a Heart shirt though is Viduka's friend Josip Skoko. He has confirmed negotiations with Heart and looks increasingly likely to be heading back to Australia.

Heart have already signed the likes of Dean Heffernan, Matt Thompson and Kristian Sarkies and the club is aiming to have its first squad in place sooner rather than later.

"The regulations mandate the numbers the squad needs, which is between 20 and 23. We're really bullish about the eight to twelve players we are close to having in place by the end of this month," said  Football Operations chief John Didulica

"Then the coach will hopefully sign three or four or even five foreigners, and then that leaves us with room to sprinkle the squad with some fresh young talent from the local leagues here in Melbourne.

"So I'd like to think we'd have our squad finalised by May, and that gives us a good three months to gel as a team and propagate the messages we want out there."