Inviting one of Canada’s leading players to work with the Scottish game’s leading team represents no threat in terms of potential conflict of interest according to the man in charge of the British Curling programme.

This week’s announcement that Glenn Howard, the four time world champion, would be joining Scotland’s dominant women’s rink Team Muirhead as their tactical coach represented a major coup.

However the fact that the veteran is still competing to go to the Winter Olympics as a player raised the question of whether he might have access to information that could benefit potential teammates in Pyongcheng.

There was also the danger of a perception that Howard could directly benefit by having insight to his own potential opponents, not least because Glen Muirhead, brother of Eve who skips Team Muirhead, is a member of Team Brewster, the current Scottish champions.

Graeme Thompson, British Curling’s performance director, said that had been fully considered, however and explained why he believes there is no cause for concern because of the fundamentally different ways the two countries prepare their international teams.

“We understand that Glenn is still trying for the Winter Olympics as a player so is potentially a member of a rival men’s team, but there’s not an equivalent performance programme in Canada,” said Thompson.

“His team competes there as an individual team up against other Canadian teams rather than sharing information with them and they would only become part of a Canadian Winter Olympic team if they come through the Canadian trials that are held almost immediately before the Games in December 2017.”

Thompson said that the initiative had been taken by Eve Muirhead following her team’s decision to part company, a few weeks ago, with Dave Hay who was their team coach when they claimed a bronze medal at the last Winter Olympics in Sochi.

They had felt that the time was right for a change of approach, opening the door to a different type of set-up utilising the existing British Curling and Scottish Institute of Sport staff while seeking more specialist input.

“We sat down with Team Muirhead to identify what it was they were looking for and a priority was a tactical coach,” said Thompson.

“We then looked at the type of personality that would work with the team and when Glenn’s name emerged, although Team Muirhead know him well from the curling circuit, we asked him to do some personality profiling and the fact that he didn’t flinch about doing it was, in itself, indicative.

“In keeping with the way we are encouraging our players to take more responsibility for their teams Eve made the first approach and Glenn was humbled to be asked.

“Clearly he is at a stage of his career where he is looking to the longer term and coaching is something he wants to get involved in so this is an ideal opportunity for him to work with one of the world’s leading teams so it is a good fit both ways. It is by no means a unique situation since even within Glenn’s rink Richard Hart has in the past coached one of the leading Canadian women’s teams skipped by Rachel Homan.”

He is consequently confident that there can only be benefit to the British set-up from having a player whose feats have become legendary in the world’s leading curling nation, as the only man to have won world titles in four different decades, dating back to before Eve Muirhead was born, but winning the most recent of them just four years ago, offering his knowhow in the build-up to the Winter Olympics.

Furthermore he reckons that, if anything, it is Howard’s compatriots who have most cause for concern in terms of what stands to be gained by Team Muirhead, who are ranked third in the world and have repeatedly upset the Canadians on their own ice in recent years.

“The upside from our point of view is getting the knowledge from a current top flight competitor which will also include insight into how the Canadian women’s teams are performing at the likes of the Grand Slam competitions and other major events,” Thompson observed.