Cleary first coached the New Zealand Warriors from 2006 to 2011, taking the club to their second grand final appearance.
He switched to Penrith in 2012 and had mixed success in his first stint leading the team before being unceremoniously dumped by then-general manager Phil Gould.
A stint with the Wests Tigers didn’t last long as Cleary led them for just 43 games, winning 18, before making a head-turning return to the Panthers for the 2018 season.
Cleary dropped hints about a possible job switch last year.
While saying he would ‘never say never’ to coaching the NRL’s new Papua New Guinea Chiefs team, he also admitted he was intrigued by the possibility of taking charge of a representative side.
‘I have thought about it a bit more lately, I don’t know why,’ Cleary told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘It’s starting to intrigue me a little bit more.
‘Just the whole thing where you don’t have a lot of time [to prepare] and so that’s something I haven’t really done much of.
‘I was assistant coach of the Kiwis in a World Cup, I really enjoyed that as well. One of the things I really liked about it was working with guys from other teams and just trying to get a team together quickly.’
The expected bombshell also comes as a host of the stars who drove Penrith to that stellar grand final run are also coming off contract at the end of next year.
In addition to Nathan, stars Isaah Yeo, Liam Martin, Brian To’o and Moses Leota are also due to become free agents.
Ivan Cleary has previously been connected to stepping into a coaching director role once his time as a head coach came to an end.
Before turning to coaching, Cleary was one of the NRL’s top backs during his time with Manly, North Sydney, the Roosters and Warriors from 1992 to 2002.
He played a total of 186 NRL matches, scoring 64 tries and slotting 553 goals to stamp himself as one of the league’s top points-scorers.
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