PADDY McCartin has ruled himself out of playing in 2020.
The No.1 selection in the 2014 national draft mutually reached the decision with St Kilda in the past fortnight, acting on the advice of high-end medical consultants in Australia and the United States to indefinitely pause his 35-match AFL career.
McCartin will stay actively involved with the Saints' football program, but his main focus will be continuing rehabilitation and recovery programs for the concussion problems which have ruined his time in the AFL.
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It is believed the AFL will this week approve of the removal of McCartin from the Saints' 2020 playing list, with Total Player Payments manager Ken Wood fully briefed by the club over its discussions with McCartin.
McCartin, 23, is contracted to the end of 2020 and will receive full entitlements under that deal.
While his playing future remains uncertain, McCartin and the Saints are convinced that the plan to sit out 2020 will provide him with the best chance to play again.
The Saints are set to delist McCartin in the coming days but he is hoping to be re-listed for the 2021 season.
McCartin has suffered eight concussions since 2014, the latest coming in a 2019 pre-season clash against the Western Bulldogs. He didn't play a premiership season match this year, and has not been able to run or train at AFL standards since.
The most recent of his 35 games in the AFL was round 16, 2018.
In June, as part of his rehabilitation, McCartin visited neurology specialists in Chicago, where he was put through a series of detailed, and at times confronting, tests which ultimately helped him arrive at his decision to sit out the 2020 season.
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McCartin and his manager Scott Lucas met with St Kilda's general manager football performance Simon Lethlean last Wednesday, where the framework for next year's arrangements was agreed to in principle.
The role McCartin is to play in the Saints' football department next year is yet to be determined, but it is understood a coaching role with the club's VFL team, Sandringham, has been mooted.
McCartin is also expected to accept a meaningful ambassadorial role with an organisation linked to research around concussion or diabetes, a condition diagnosed in him at the age of eight.
Paddy McCartin's latest concussion came in the pre-season. Picture: AFL Photos
