Glasgow (AFP) – Malky Mackay has been appointed as Scotland’s interim manager as the search for Gordon Strachan’s successor starts after the team’s failure to qualify for the World Cup.
Mackay was working as Scottish Football Association’s performance director and, following Strachan’s exit on Thursday, he will now oversee the friendly against the Netherlands at Pittodrie on November 9.
SFA chief executive Stewart Regan made the announcement on Friday, speaking at a press conference in which he admitted it was a time for a change after Strachan’s disappointing reign.
Scotland would have sealed a World Cup play-off berth with a victory in Slovakia last weekend, but they were held to a 2-2 draw despite taking the lead.
The result ended Scotland’s hopes of reaching next year’s tournament in Russia and left them without a World Cup appearance since 1998.
“Ultimately we are in a result business. We had a manager in place for five years coming up. He’d had two campaigns,” Regan said.
“When the board met to discuss Gordon’s position after the defeats to England and Slovakia, we backed the manager, but we backed the manager on the proviso that we made the play-offs.
“We didn’t reach the play-offs and we felt it was time for a new coach to give us a new impetus with emerging talent coming through the Scottish game and give us a real chance to make Euro 2020.”
Mackay was a controversial appointment as performance director in December last year after being the subject of an 11-month probe into a series of inappropriate text messages during his time as Cardiff boss.
Regan refused to be drawn on whether Mackay would be a candidate for the permanent manager’s role.
“Malky’s the performance director,” he said. “He has got a big job to do and a number of challenges that he is working on at the moment.
“To be fair to Malky he has responded to the board’s request. We asked him to take the team in Aberdeen and he was delighted to do so. As far as Malky is concerned, he will then focus on his performance responsibilities.
“We asked him literally in the aftermath of yesterday’s decision to lead the team for one match. We haven’t discussed anything further as far as the recruitment campaign is concerned.”
