John Collins has confirmed that Peter Lawwell is effectively Celtic’s Director of Football.
At the end of June the Chief Executive Officer will finally stand down with Celtic currently scrambling around to put in place a structure to take the club forward.
Dom McKay will take on the CEO title but it seems that he will work on the business side of the club leaving playing football to others who are qualified for that role.
Collins was assistant manager to Ronny Deila from 2014 to 2016 to get a first hand view of decision making inside the club.
When Deila was brought in no players were signed until the final hours of the transfer window when Stefan Scepovic joined from Sporting Gijon with the club turning to the loan market to sign John Guidetti, Jo Inge Berget, Jason Denayer, Wakaso Mubarek and Aleksandar Tonev.
Fraser Forster was sold to Southampton with Craig Gordon turning out to be an inspired signing, in the January window Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Amstrong were signed from Dundee United.
Discussing the role of a Director of Football at Celtic and the autonomy (35 minutes) that Ronny Deila had during Sportsound on Radio Scotland:
John Collins: The manager always has the ultimate say on a signing, they say ‘Yes, I want him’ or ‘I don’t want him’
Kenny MacIntrye: So Ronny Deila had that?
JC: Yes, you get presented with three central defenders, or three right-back’s and he’ll look at them, he’ll have his decision, he’ll ask his staff to have a look at them, assess them, say what do you think?
But ultimately, it is Peter, he was the Chief Executive stroke Director of Football to say ‘Do I want him? Yes I will take him or I won’t take him’. I think that it would be foolish for any club to sign a player without the manager in place saying ‘Yes, I’ll take him’.
CLICK HERE for Celtic’s transfer record.
Brendan Rodgers initially enjoyed almost a free hand at Celtic but when Neil Lennon returned he wasn’t allowed to appoint any of his own coaching staff.