Former Celt Billy Stark will take charge of the Scotland squad to face Luxembourg next week following the sacking of Craig Levein.
U-21 coach Stark will name his squad later in the week as the SFA begin the search for Levein’s replacement with Gordon Strachan the early favourite with the bookies to take over.
Announcing Levein’s departure Stewart Regan said: “We are taking this decision with real sadness. Craig has worked hard to bring success, and has been thoroughly professional in his approach to the job.
“He has achieved a great deal with the team and in other areas, such as the Performance Strategy. However, he would be the first to agree that football is a results-driven business. For that reason we have relieved Craig of his duties with immediate effect.
“Billy Stark will take interim charge of the team for the friendly against Luxembourg. There will be a short delay in announcing that squad, which Billy will select, and we have informed the Luxembourg FA of this development.
“We will shortly announce an interim replacement for the Under-21 squad ahead of their match against Portugal next week.
“After the Luxembourg match, the Board will meet to begin the process of identifying and recruiting the next National Coach to take us forward. We will give ourselves time, given our fixture schedule, to find the right person for the job.
“The challenge for the squad now is to improve our position in Group A and, subsequently, improve our position in the FIFA rankings. We also must begin preparations for the UEFA European Championships in France in 2016, which for the first time will have 24 qualification places available.”
Stark enjoyed three seasons at Celtic towards the end of his career playing a key part in the Centenary double winning side and later returned as assistant manager to Tommy Burns.
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Sorry this is yet another example of why Scottish football is in such a sorry mess. Now we are leaving it to the clueless clowns (Regan & Ogilvie) to lead our search for the next manager.
Stark, decent player, nice guy bu he isn’t going to take Scotland forward. We need someone to re-instill the passion / pride of playing for Scotland. We have had players like Bremner, Hay who led by example in ’74 some skills but great heart and determination.
We will never win any major trophy, so why the clamour to reach the final stages if we continue to do as we have done so often…turn up, get gubbed and go home again. Let’s have a team who go out to win EVERY game, no matter the opposition. So we get thrashed, happened before. But as fans we will remember TRYING to win, trying to give the high & mighty a bloody nose, sometimes we will and deservedly too…a few wins at Wembley, 3-1 v Spain all live long in the memory.
What of the last 8 managers in 10 years….nothing worth talking about. Hoping to steal a win rather than enforcing our game on whoever we play.
We might not win, but surely we can make sure they have to work dam hard to beat us….not the situation at present.
I’d even take Terry Butcher as he makes sure his players truly give 100%, hugely limited resources but still no easy fixture. Make the name Scotland feared again instead of being the team all the rest are happy to play against.
Meanwhile Ogilvie, the severely tainted man keeps his post.SFA Blazers are clowns they will get heehaw £s from me support Scotland, when the SFA are gone an fkn stay gone aye! Ogilvie and the shadow Blazers GET TAE!
There’ll be a period of sagely nodding, followed by another shorter period of press conferences to reiterate our desire to think about maybe looking at trying to find that which is missing. Finally we’ll have a fanfare to announce that ‘we’re no further forward and we’re targeting the world cup in 2032 as a possible target for our targets. We plan to channel Ally’s Tartan Army and watch Braveheart twice before each game as that should do it’. All in all, Stevie Wonder picking the team! Same directionless drivel from a bunch of clowns who should be on job seekers by now.
Rather than campaign to ditch the manager (although it had to be done!) we should be battling to get rid of the corrupt and spineless top of the tree at SFA Towers!