Alex Miller wants to help Henry McLeish fulfil his blueprint for Scottish football

Published on Sunday 22 August 2010 16:53

FORMER Hibs manager Alex Miller has expressed an interest in filling the new role of SFA performance director created as a result of Henry McLeish's review of Scottish football.

Miller, currently in Sweden at the helm of AIK Stockholm, is keen to return to Scotland where he has not worked since joining Liverpool as chief scout in 1999. The 61-year-old, who later became coach of the Anfield club under Rafael Benitez and played a key role in their Champions League triumph in 2005, would welcome the opportunity to oversee McLeish's recommended overhaul of the SFA's youth development system.

"If the job is about developing kids, assessing our game and coaching, then I'm interested," said Miller. "That's my forte. I can spot a player. I enjoy coaching kids. I used to do it as Hibs boss.

"I'd go to our coaching schools in Hamilton, Fife and Edinburgh to train them and I spotted players such as Paul Lambert, Paul Hartley, John Collins and Kenny Miller.

"I also have experience at all levels of the game, while working with Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez at Liverpool taught me to be specific in preparation."

SFA vice-president Campbell Ogilvie, who is leading the search for the performance director, is well acquainted with Miller who was a player at Rangers when Ogilvie was secretary of the Ibrox club. Miller has clear ideas on how Scottish clubs should be set up in order to deliver a better standard of player to reach full international level.

"Clubs should have two development programmes, one for standard and one for elite. If a kid stands out then age shouldn't matter. If they are 12, 14 and 15 they should be training together in an elite group.

"You might only have 12 players but they should train with senior staff because that's your future first team. If standard players want to get to the top then they have to work harder."

Meanwhile, McLeish claims that the Scottish Parliament will finance the building of new facilities he insists are essential if our footballers are to compete with the best.

The former First Minister unveiled the first part of his report into the state of the game in April and stated that 500 million needed to be spent building 20 national training centres.

With the coalition government and MSPs at Holyrood bracing themselves for savage cuts in public services McLeish would appear to have little chance of having his recommendations funded by our politicians. However, following Scotland's slump to 41st place in the Fifa rankings McLeish is certain that Alex Salmond and Co will support his plans which, he argues, will end up saving the NHS money.

"In my first report I said that 400,000 people in Scotland play football every year. I want that to go up to one in ten, which is 500,000. If you take health, fitness, well-being, confidence-building and the social side then what we can offer the Government is a completely new deal. That's a new, more professional relationship, a new identification of outcomes that we can deliver for the Government.

"We've got to move relationships between government and football on to a much higher level so it's not just a matter of knocking on the government's door, taking resources and putting them here and there."