Steve Clarke steps down as Scotland coach: SFA seeks unrestricted successor

Steve Clarke has decided to step down as coach of the Scotland national team following the team's disappointment in failing to progress through the knockout stages of the World Cup. The Scottish Football Association (SFA) has already begun the process of selecting a new manager, with chief executive Ian Maxwell saying "nothing is off the table".

Clarke's departure was announced shortly after it was confirmed that Scotland would be unable to progress to the knockout stages of the tournament. The coach had signed a new four-year contract shortly before the start of the competition. Scotland started Group C with a 1-0 victory over Haiti, but a defeat by the same score to Morocco and a 3-0 loss to Brazil compromised their chances of qualifying as one of the eight best third-placed teams. In the end, Scotland finished 11th out of the 12 teams in the group stage.

"Football is a very small world," Maxwell said in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the Scotland team was based. "I have received a few messages from people interested in the role. We need to explore all possibilities. The important thing is to find the right coach, regardless of where he comes from. There are many good coaches out there and it is up to us to make sure we choose the right one. The search for a successor starts now."

Scotland's next games are against North Macedonia, Slovenia and Switzerland in Nations League matches in the autumn. “We are offering a really attractive job to the right coach,” continued Maxwell. "We have the Euros that we will co-host in 2028 and many successes in recent years. We need someone who can take us even further."


Maxwell wants to make the new hire “as quickly as possible,” but stresses that it must be “the right person.” "It's very difficult to define dates," he explained. "We have games in September."

Clarke, who previously managed Kilmarnock, Reading and West Bromwich Albion, took charge of Scotland in 2019 and led the men's team to their first tournament qualification in 23 years. Although Scotland were eliminated in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, they managed to reach Euro 2024 and last year secured a return to football's biggest stage. This year's World Cup was the first to feature Scotland since 1998. In all three competitions, Scotland have lost twice in the group stage, managing just one victory in three tournaments - against Haiti two weeks ago.

Maxwell expressed that the "biggest reaction right now is sadness" at Clarke's departure, which is still "very recent." "We are sad that the World Cup journey is over. We are sad that we didn't achieve what we wanted and, of course, sad that our most successful manager has left. We talked a lot. We spoke after the Brazil game. Everyone was very despondent. It was the lowest point Scotland have felt in a long time. I spoke to him yesterday and he decided he wanted to step down. That was ultimately his decision. I understand why. We didn't perform as well as we had hoped. Some comments at home were quite hysterical, which didn't help, but in the end it's up to Steve. We need to be proud of the journey that got us here. We need to be immensely proud of our fans.America."

Regarding the new contract announced at the end of May, Maxwell commented: "We wanted to enter the competition with as much stability as possible. The contract extension did that. It eliminated any talk of what would happen next. Obviously, we found ourselves in a position that no one wanted to be in. We wanted to do well, we wanted to do what no Scottish team has done before in the group stage. We couldn’t achieve that.”

Maxwell praised Clarke's work, stating, "He was incredible. If we had sat down seven years ago when we signed him and said, 'This is what the next seven years are going to look like,' everyone would have accepted that without hesitation. He did a fantastic job for us. The last thing I would want is for your reputation or legacy to be tarnished in any way. It is important to recognize the significant achievements he has achieved. At last night's meeting, when he said goodbye to the players, the emotion showed how much they value him and how much he cares about them. We can't lose sight of that."

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