The real Mark Lawwell back story and the ‘City Football Group’ claim

At the start of May Celtic announced a key new appointment. 

Mark Lawwell will be joining the club at a future date as Head of First Team Scouting and Recruitment. Strangely there was no picture or comment from the new man at the club, instead Ange Postecoglou was used to talk up the new man with a familiar surname. 

According to the Celtic statement the new man had spent 10 years as Head of Scouting and Recruitment at the CFG (City Football Group) which covers clubs in Europe, Australia, Japan, South America and the USA. Mark is 37.

CLICK HERE for the real Leadership Team at City Football Group.

From Celtic announcement on May 2.

To have been in such a senior position at the age of 27 is quite an achievement, especially with nothing available online about what Mark was doing prior to getting that coveted job at the CFG. 

On the CFG website there is a page that profiles 14 members of their Leadership Team, strangely there is no mention on Lawwell. 

An overall Google search for Mark Lawwell and CFG brings up virtually nothing beyond references to Celtic’s announcement. 

A little digging around does confirm employment at Manchester City but not at the elevated position claimed on his Linkedin profile. According to the man himself he is ‘Head of CFG Scouting and Recruitment at City Football Group’ which sounds very clunky. 

In 2016 both UEFA and The Times described Mark as City’s ‘Scouting information and content manager’ which is a long way down from the grand claim made by Celtic that they had recruited the head of City Football Group’s Scouting and Recruitment. A job he had apparently been in since 2012.

What job the manager of scouting information and content actually does is hard to define, it could be fairly senior or office based ensuring that the scouting systems are robust and upto date.  

From UEFA’s media guide to the Manchester City v Celtic Champions League match in November 2016.

Story from The Times September 2016 to preview Celtic v Manchester City Champions League tie.

Mark’s profile on LinkedIn. There are six companies that he has an interest in- Celtic, Barcelona, Manchester City, Melbourne City, New York City Football Club and Open Goal (Si Ferry’s podcast). Yokohama F Marinos aren’t one of his interests. It seems that Slaney and Kev Kyle are a bigger interest than the CFG club in the J-League.

Lawwell may well have learned a lot during his 10 years at Manchester City but whatever it was he was in nowhere near as senior a role as Celtic are claiming. 

There are Head’s of Recruitment and Scouting at almost all EPL and English Championship clubs that are well travelled and connected, that can identify players and cut through agents and bureaucracy to get to decision makers. And crucially, also have an eye for a player. 

With his Dad still lurking around in the boardroom at Celtic it seems that a hunch is being followed that Mark is a star spotter and deal maker rolled into one. Previous hunches from his Dad have proved very costly such as two appearances in the Champions League group stage in the last eight years. 

Celtic’s recruitment this summer is vital, at the same time expensive flops brought in under Peter Lawwell such as Boli Boligoli, Albian Ajeti, Vasilis Barkas and Ismaila Soro will have to be moved on, almost certainly writing off £15m in transfer fees plus wages, signing on fees and agency charges.

Quite a responsibility for Manchester City’s departing scouting information and content manager.