GORDON Strachan has told Scotland’s leading clubs they must back the recommendations contained in Project Brave if they want to reverse the decline of the national game.
Strachan helped Brian McClair to come up with a series of proposed changes to the SFA Performance Strategy during his former Manchester United team mate’s brief spell as performance director.
McClair stood down last year, just 13 months after being appointed, after apparently growing frustrated at the resistance to his far-reaching suggestions he encountered.
Malky Mackay, the former Cardiff City manager, took over as performance director in December and has met with member clubs in an attempt to push through the plans.
They include reducing the number of academies and players in the Club Academy Scotland system, re-introducing the reserve league and increasing the use of loans to lower league clubs.
Strachan, who turns 60 today, believes it will be hugely positive for Scottish football if they embrace just some of the changes.
“Malky’s thrown himself into it, but he needs backing,” he said. “At the SFA we can only advise – it’s down to the big clubs how they go about it.
“People think SFA can change it – but it’s tough. If you get five or six ideas and two or three get through that’s doing well.”
Strachan, whose Scotland team take on Slovenia in a crucial Russia 2018 qualifier at Hampden next month, pledged to continue to help in any way he could.
And the former Coventry City, Southampton, Celtic and Middlesbrough manager revealed that legendary Rangers manager Walter Smith had offered his services as well.
“I’m there to help him in any way and I spoke to Walter (Smith) and he’s willing to help too,” he said.
“I love being in the game and the job I do now is fantastic. My big thing is trying to make young football players better.
“I want to push sport to make Scotland a better place to live and for kids to grow up in. I can do that alongside coaching and managing.
“It’s like playing. Why did I play until I was 40? It was because I was fit. When people packed it in at 34 I could carry on and use my knowledge.
“At 60 I hope I can carry on coaching, helping players, other coaches whatever it may be.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here