Celtic’s recruitment is in the spotlight more than ever currently.
Ultimately, it has just cost the club their manager. Brendan Rodgers has resigned, and his feelings on the club’s recruitment process are absolutely clear in the public.
Celtic fan protests have made supporters’ feelings known – they have run out of patience with the club’s higher management.
But the debate can also swirl around who actually makes the decisions. Dermot Desmond’s scathing attack on Brendan Rodgers has firmly established that he had his say in every Celtic transfer.
But for scout David Pleat, who is currently working at Celtic, there is only one man who decides on transfers in the end, and it isn’t the first-team manager.
Celtic scout David Pleat on who has the ultimate say on signings
It’s no secret that modern day football recruitment is a collaborative process.
Rodgers played a leading role in the signings of Kelechi Iheanacho and Adam Idah, but players like Hayato Inamura and Shin Yamada will have been dumped on his desk.
The exact process of player signings is unknown, as is the level of influence that 80-year-old Pleat has.
But whilst he didn’t mention which club he was referring to, Pleat’s comments on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast sound pretty relevant to Celtic.
“In terms of scouting, what’s happened now is there’s too many departments.
“What might happen is, you recommend a player who you quite like. You send a report in, then it goes to the analysts, and it goes to the recruitment man, then the head of recruitment…
“There’s too many channels to go through. Because, of course, in the end, the only man that really signs the player is the bank manager.
“The bank manager, in the end, decides. If the chairman says, ‘we’re going to support the manager, have we got the £20 million or whatever, can we do it?’
“The bank manager, he’s the one that decides in the end, how we’re going to phase the payment, or can we do it. Football’s a wonderful game, but sometimes it baffles you.”
David Pleat’s role at Celtic
Pleat was brought to the Hoops to work in a role with a ‘focus on the English market’. If he led the signing of Jahmai Simpson-Pusey then he might not be doing it much longer.
Joining Celtic after departing Tottenham where he had a long spell, Pleat has discussed the differences in financial climate between the two clubs.
Aged 80, he has worked in football for over half a century. He managed Spurs in the 1980s, later returning as caretaker boss on a number of occasions.
He has also been voted as the greatest ever manager of Luton Town, and is a member of the League Managers’ Association hall of fame.
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