Queensland Rugby coaching director Ewen McKenzie remains hopeful Quade Cooper will play for the Reds in the next Super Rugby season despite suggestions the disgruntled Wallabies playmaker is set to quit the code in Australia.

McKenzie said Cooper was on leave and has not been in contact with the Reds over the past week.

But it seems Bad boy, Quade Cooper's Australian rugby career is over.

This is after the Australian Rugby Union effectively forced the star five-eighth out of the game by offering him an incentive-based contract usually reserved for rookies.

Cooper, who was hit with a record $40,000 fine for criticising the state of the game and the mood in the Wallabies camp, had a contract offer from the ARU pulled and received a revised deal from ARU.

If he was to accept the deal, Cooper would be regarded as below the top 30 players in Australia, an insult to the 24-year-old voted the country’s Super Rugby player of the year in 2011.

Boxing is another possibility, and there is speculation Quade Cooper could fight on the under-card of close friend Sonny Bill Williams’s proposed bout in February.

Cooper added fuel to the fire last night by tweeting a photo of himself with Mike Tyson, along with the caption: The scariest man on the planet and Iron Mike Tyson.

Speaking to nine news, Cooper revealed his plans of switching to boxing.