Ian Maxwell says nothing is off the table after Steve Clarke's resignation, with the Scotland search for a successor starting immediately. The Scottish FA chief executive said the governing body wants to cast the net “as far and wide as we can”, while stressing that the next appointment is about finding the right coach rather than matching a passport to the job.
The search starts now
Maxwell was blunt about the pace of the process. “The succession planning starts now,” he said, and that is the clearest part of this story. Scotland do not have time for a long drift between managers, especially with autumn Nations League fixtures against North Macedonia, Slovenia and Switzerland already on the calendar.
He also framed the vacancy as a good one to fill. Maxwell said Scotland are “a really attractive job” for the right head coach, pointing to the 2028 Euros they will co-host. That is the pitch the Scottish FA will lean on while it weighs up a wide field, and it leaves the door open to any profile rather than a narrow national preference.
Clarke's record and the World Cup exit
There is a separate argument running alongside the search. Kris Boyd called some of the criticism of Clarke “an absolute disgrace”, and Paul Lambert said Clarke has given Scotland “three brilliant major tournaments” that “nobody can knock”. Those are not stray lines of sympathy, they are a reminder that the resignation sits alongside a record many Scotland supporters still value.
The World Cup itself was brutal in its own way. Scotland opened Group C with a 1-0 win over Haiti, then lost 1-0 to Morocco and 3-0 to Brazil. Results elsewhere left them 11th of the 12 teams to finish third at the group stage, a finish that explains why the exit followed so quickly.
The wider context is a little messy. One reaction report described the tournament as Scotland's first World Cup since 1998, while the BBC coverage tied the exit announcement to the results elsewhere after the final group-stage games. What is not messy is the task now in front of the Scottish FA. Steve Clarke is gone, the search has started, and Scotland head into the autumn with a vacancy to fill before the next set of fixtures.
Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →