I wanted Souness as manager but I was out-voted

Had I been able, I would have offered Graeme Souness the Scotland manager’s job.

That’s something I’d like to make clear after a week which has seen Graeme go back over the events at the start of 2008 that led to George Burley’s appointment.

Graeme has stated he was disappointed he had to learn he didn’t get the job through the newspapers, and that no-one from the SFA bothered to phone him.

I was the governing body’s Chief Executive at the time, and there is a simple explanation.

George did not have the job when stories emerged suggesting that he had. He was the SFA Board’s favoured candidate from a four-man short list that also included Graeme, Mark McGhee and Tommy Burns.

I had been charged with finding out whether Southampton would be due compensation if we were to appoint him. Had their buy-out clause been at a level we could not afford, we would have moved on to another candidate.

For that reason, the preference to go with Burley was confidential.

Unfortunately, as soon as I got in touch with Southampton, someone at the club immediately leaked that contact to the newspapers. That led to the disappointing situation where the candidates learned who our top choice was via the media.

As the record books show, we were indeed able to get George and he was appointed Scotland manager. At that point, I phoned Graeme because I wanted his address so I could send him a letter, stating our appreciation for his application and my regret about the leak. He never responded to that call.

I can understand that. He will have been annoyed both about the decision itself and the way the process played out. In his position, I might well have been too.

If the decision had been solely down to the Chief Executive, the post I held then, things would have been different. Graeme was I believe now as I believed then the best candidate. He didn’t, though, meet a number of the criteria set by the Board.

I won’t go into them all, but one was that the Association were looking for a manager who was prepared to live in Scotland. That was fine with George Burley, but not with Graeme.

Personally, I didn’t believe that it mattered, and it is significant it is no longer a requirement, with Gordon Strachan’s home lying south of Hadrian’s Wall.