SFA stance on Clarke's future revealed as chief makes pyro claim

Glasgow Times

20 hours ago

Clarke came in for renewed criticism from supporters after a 3-1 defeat to Iceland in a Hampden friendly last week.
While the national team steadied the ship with a 4-0 win over minnows Liechtenstein, a record of five wins in 22 games have increased the level of scrutiny on the manager ahead of the first World Cup qualifier against Denmark in September.
Read more:
While Clarke himself has said that there is a 75% chance of him leaving his job after the next World Cup cycle, SFA Chief Executive Ian Maxwell claims the matter has yet to come up for discussion.
"There has been no conversation, Steve wants to get us to the World Cup, and we're all just focusing on that.
"It's my job to have an eye on who's out there at all times, because managers leave for a variety of different reasons at a variety of different times, sometimes when you least expect it.
"So if I'm doing my job properly, there's always half an eye on who's available and we'll have that conversation with Steve as and when the time comes. But the focus has to be, we want to get to the World Cup, what do we need to do to make sure that we give everybody the best chance of doing that?"
Clarke has said that qualification for the World Cup Finals in Mexico, Canada and America could persuade him to stay on beyond his current contract, due to expire next summer.
Reluctant to speculate on the likelihood of a renewal, Maxwell offered his support for the current manager in the face of signs of a growing weariness with his tenure amongst supporters.
"I saw something about five wins in 22 or whatever it was, but you think back to the start of the Euro qualifying campaign, we won four or five in a row, and we've qualified as one of the first teams to do so, so there's nuance to it all.
"People can look at numbers, people can look at stats, and you can make them whatever you want them to make, but as I said, we need to have a broader view.
"When you look back since 2019 we've gone League C, League B, League A, back-to-back Euros, it was a penalty kick that we should have got away from being the first manager to get us out of a group at the Euros.
"If you'd have told everybody in 2019 that would have been the case, it would have been where do we sign?
"It happens, and there's bits in between that aren't brilliant, by everybody's admission, and we're not shying away from that. You have to be broad-minded."
Clubs were also told, meanwhile, of new measures to crack down on fan pyrotechnics and unruly behaviour during domestic cup games.
"Everybody has to do more," added Maxwell. "We've got a Government Roundtable next week.
"We're working as closely as we've ever been with the SPFL. The relationship's really good, and it's important that when we are dealing with things.
"We just need to do as much as we can because there's been a lot of high-profile instances, particularly towards the end of last season, that were unacceptable."