Melbourne have confirmed that former Sydney premiership mentor Paul Roos will be their new coach.
Roos, who guided the Swans to their drought-breaking flag in 2005, has agreed to a two-year contract with the Demons which contains an option to extend for a third year.
The Hall of Fame member takes the reins from caretaker coach Neil Craig who has been coaching the Demons since Round 13 after his former boss Mark Neeld was sacked a mere 33 matches into his tenure.
Roos becomes Melbourne's seventh coach in seven years.
Roos is one of the game's most revered figures having coached the Swans for a record 202 games between 2002 and 2010, including seven finals series, two grand finals and a premiership.
The 50-year-old was also a champion player, with 356 games to his credit for Fitzroy and Sydney in a 17-year career that saw him netted him five best-and-fairest award, seven All-Australian Guernseys and a Leigh Matthews Trophy.
There has been much consternation over Roos' appointment since rumours erupted last weekend that he would coach Melbourne, with the main bone of contention amongst rival clubs being the extent of the AFL's involvement in paying Roos a reported $1.5 million a year to coach the struggling club.
But league chief Andrew Demetriou dismissed those concerns and downplayed the AFL's financial assistance to the Demons.
"If Paul roos is to be appointed Melbourne Football Club coach can I just assure you the AFL's contribution and its financial package, which its yet to finalise, will only be for the replacement value of the previous coach. That's it. The AFL is not paying for any coaches," Demetriou told radio station 3AW on Friday.
"I can tell you it's significantly less than what's being mooted because those people that were commenting are quite right to say it's not the AFL's role to create hyper inflation in coaching and so forth.
"All I can say is, we're only contributing to the replacement value of Mark Neeld was."