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Former SPL chief warns Celtic manager must be controlled

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Roger Mitchell has slammed as nonsense the notion that Eddie Howe should be allowed to bring in his own Director of Football.

Over the last 24 hours expectations that the former Bournemouth boss was bound for Celtic have been greatly reduced following comments made by a representative to Sky Sports.

Everything at this stage is guesswork but it has been suggested that Howe wanted to bring Richard Hughes north from Bournemouth while Celtic had their eye on Fergal Harkin for the critical role of Sports Director/ Director of Football.

Nick Hammond kept a very low profile as Head of Football Operations before leaving Celtic last week with a restructuring off the pitch looking like being as extensive as the anticipated summer overhaul of the first team squad.

Mitchell was Chief Executive of the SPL in its early years, from his base in Italy he claims to be a Celtic fan with the Daily Record picking up on his Social Media thoughts on the management situation at Celtic.

Sharing an article on Jordan’s quotes from the Daily Record the former SFA wrote: “UK football has such an issue with the Director of football role.

“This person is misunderstood as a ‘contracts guy’, as a ‘player identification guy’. Even part of the staff of the manager. Often his mate. Nonsense.

“This is understandable given our history with dynasty ‘managers’ like Stein, Shankly, Busby, Clough and Ferguson.

“Those days have gone. European football has never had such issues. They don’t have managers, but mere coaches or trainers who report 100 per cent to a DOF.

“It is essential that a ‘manager’ is controlled in the European way. The club must have a strategy and structure beyond the current guy and his cabal. Especially around player recruitment, playing style, and data.

“First question to any candidate for quick filtering should be ‘do you consider yourself a manager or a head coach?’. UK fans don’t get this at all. They crave the manager.”

Neil Lennon resigned as Celtic manager on February 24.

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