‘BRINGING the boys back home’ is the title of a Melbourne Football Club blueprint which aims to develop an elite training facility within the walls of the MCG.

The new plan puts in doubt the move to the yet-to-be-completed rectangular stadium in the Olympic Park precinct on Swan Street, with the team likely to train at Gosch's Paddock.

The AFL and the Melbourne Cricket Club have both agreed to discuss the idea, starting the proposal on a probably lengthy journey towards possible fulfilment.

"The Melbourne Football Club must make the MCG its home," Melbourne CEO Cameron Schwab told The Age.

"The question is do we work out of the MCG as a singular home developing an elite training base here, or do we share our base between here and the new stadium over the road?

"The hybrid set-up still looks the most realistic possibility in terms of securing a training ground in the precinct, but there is simply not enough room for our entire administration to move there."

The Demons are looking to use the two Great Southern Stand changing rooms as the beginnings of their plan to become a major tenant.

"We've got to secure this business and in the short term we have to work closely with the AFL, but in the long term in order to thrive we need to strengthen our relationship with the MCG and it needs to be interdependent," Schwab said.

"We clearly have to be great for the MCC and we need them to be great for us. In 2009, 300,000 people are expected to go through the MCG outside of match days and if you look at an elite sporting club with a football team operating out of it we believe we can bring the stadium to life."