Craig Mulholland on His New Scottish FA Role and the Suspicion He Understands

The former Rangers figure has entered a key role within the Scottish FA. The bright-eyed, engaging Craig Mulholland does not seem like the kind of person who would ever take a closed-minded approach to things. However, during his time as academy director at Rangers, he admits there had to be an element of selfishness in how he operated.

Now, in his role as chief football officer for the Scottish Football Association, he understands the suspicion within clubs when anyone starts prattling on about applying blue-sky thinking to curing Scottish football’s ills. He empathises with the ‘aye, but what’s in it for us?’ reaction. Because he was once firmly in that camp.

The 56-year-old has called a summit of Scotland’s 42 league clubs. However, heaven help anyone who suggests anyone is being summoned to St Andrews a week on Friday for this powwow about the future of the game in this country. “We’ve not ‘summoned’ anyone anywhere, Mulholland stresses.

Whatever the semantics, Friday 4 September is another red-letter day for Scottish football, more than 15 years after former first minister Henry McLeish’s two-part independent review into the state of the game was published. Let's go round again. Evolve or die might be putting it too strongly.

However, Mulholland is keen to implement a new era of the SFA working “incredibly closely” with clubs to get to grips with issues such as the chronic shortage of Scots playing top-level football and the unhelpful recent trend of promising young Scots being subsumed into the academies of big clubs in England. Even Celtic and Rangers are not immune to this. As recently as Friday, it was confirmed that Fulham had signed 16-year-old Celtic striker Erskine Rennie.

The Parkhead club can look forward to receiving roughly £80,000 in ‘compensation’. Another way of looking at it is: would Rennie have been given the chance at first-team level with Celtic? “We need to put mechanisms in place that encourage opportunities for young players to play, Mulholland says.

We are one of the few countries in Europe that doesn’t have any rules or incentives or anything like that. He expects resistance. He knows the mindset from his time with Rangers.

I’ve sat on the other side of these conversations for one of the biggest clubs in the country for years, he says. If we’re going to get this game better then we need to get the Scottish FA and clubs working hand in hand – and the Press, the public…” Club versus country is a long-established battle line, especially where the Old Firm are concerned. Mulholland’s ties to one of them might be helpful.

Or else the connection could be a hindrance. It remains to be seen. All he knows is that he wants to reach some kind of accommodation regarding the way forward.

We can’t be sitting bottom of the tables across Europe for giving young players minutes and think that’s okay, he stressed. We need to be aware of the reality of the problem. I was 20 years with Rangers, so I’m not sitting here preaching to anyone, he continues.

I was then part of that problem. We were all part of it. But now we need to be brave enough to say, 'Right, we’re at a bit of a crossroads'.

Mulholland had been expecting to work with Steve Clarke when he clocked on in his new role last month. Although well regarded at Nottingham Forest, where he was head of football development and talent management, one of his main credentials for moving back north of the Border was knowing he could get on with Clarke. They shared broadly the same vision.

This was all rendered redundant at the end of June, when Scotland suddenly found themselves looking for a new manager. Suddenly Mulholland’s in-tray looked a lot different. Finding a new manager became his first task. He is thrilled with who has emerged from the pack, the exciting” – and young - Sebastien Pocognoli, who turned 39 earlier this month.