STEWART REGAN, the Scottish Football Association chief executive, knew "some time ago" that Craig Levein had no desire to remain as national team manager beyond the end of the World Cup qualifying campaign but elected not to share the information with other members of the SFA board until last week.
Levein was yesterday removed from his position as national team manager but his contract has not been terminated. Instead, the SFA will continue to pay him as before until his deal expires in two years' time, with the understanding that his salary will stop being paid should he find another job in that time.
Billy Stark, the Under-21s head coach, will take temporary charge of the senior side and is expected to name a squad tomorrow to face Luxembourg in a friendly next week.
Gordon Strachan, Joe Jordan and Walter Smith are among the early favourites to succeed Levein on a permanent basis, the search for which will begin after next week's game. Scotland do not play again after that until February when they host Estonia in a friendly at Pittodrie.
Regan said the decision to remove Levein was taken "with real sadness" but admitted poor results, that have left Scotland at the foot of their World Cup qualifying group with just two points from four matches, meant a change of manager was required. "At the beginning of the campaign, if you'd have asked where we thought we'd be after four games, it wouldn't have been bottom," he said. "We're not in the bottom pot yet we find ourselves bottom of the group, behind teams who are lower than us in the FIFA rankings and in lower pots in the FIFA World Cup process. So let's start with regaining respectability. A new manager will be expected to work with the players to turn around our performance."
Levein, who was told the news over the telephone after deciding not to travel to Hampden to meet the board in person, believed he was still the man to lead the team for the next two years, despite a record of just three victories in 12 competitive matches.
"He is very disappointed today," added Regan. "He felt he deserved the chance to carry on, he wanted to carry on. He made that very clear to us last Tuesday. But we just did not get the results we needed."
News that Levein had no intention of remaining in the post beyond 2014 will likely have shaped the seven-man SFA board's thinking, although Regan's announcement that it was a "collective" decision to remove the manager suggested it was not a unanimous one. The chief executive, however, felt he was right to keep news of Levein's future plans initially to himself.
"Craig shared that with me privately some time ago," said Regan. "The board were made aware of that following the meeting we had with him last Tuesday. It was a private discussion. He had not shared that with anybody outside of myself. It was a confidential discussion. He was thoroughly committed to the campaign but had decided that his future was not going to be in international football management after the current campaign.
"That was one of the key factors that we took into consideration, the fact that even if we were mathematically able to qualify [for the World Cup], Craig had indicated he would be stepping down anyway. We felt that there would be change ahead of France 2016 anyway so we need to give a new manager the maximum opportunity to restore respectability to this campaign and then obviously build towards France 2016."
Regan, together with Campbell Ogilvie, the SFA president, met Levein last Tuesday to discuss his future and told the manager they expected to reach a decision by Thursday evening. Instead, the board kept Levein waiting a further four days as they considered "a number of factors" – thought to include the likely knock-on financial effects of retaining an unpopular manager – before finally arriving at a decision yesterday.
"In an ideal world we would have not made the decision as late as we have," admitted Regan. "But unfortunately there are times when we have to get more information. We've considered all of the acts and implications of all of the various options that were open to us and we ultimately decided change was needed.
"There have been a lot of requests for change from groups like the Tartan Army. Equally, there has been a lot of support for Craig. We've had to factor in all of these issues, but today's decision is, I think, the right decision for Scotland going forward."
Regan would not go into the financial details of Levein's four-and-a-half year contract, although it is thought a pay-off would likely have cost the SFA around £700,000, but insisted the decision to keep paying their former manager would not impact on the search for his successor.
"Craig has a legally binding contract. As an employer, we are not terminating that contract and we've agreed that we will honour it. Craig will continue to receive all the entitlements that are in his contract including his remuneration. The board considered all the facts and the implications of the decision. We have decided that this is the right course of action."
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