I have always liked Emilio Izaguirre. He was a fine player for us and has been a fine ambassador for us. Now that he’s in Honduras and running a team, he wants to hook up with Celtic in an official capacity. That’s a very fine idea, and we should snap it up.
Izzy is currently the sporting director at F.C. Motagua, back in his homeland. And he has proposed a mutually beneficial partnership with us.
We’re looking to Asia now for new footballers. It is a matter of time before in North, Central and South America more regularly. We’ve taken internationals from the US and Canada. That’s only the beginning, so getting a toehold in the Americas is ideal.
We did have one, for a while, in Mexico but I don’t know if our board knew what the Hell to do with it. I don’t think that we’ve had a coherent plan for those regions in a long time, mostly because, as I said earlier, we have a European focus. Not now.
Izzy wants to learn whatever lessons he can from the way we develop our players. He mentions Kieran Tierney, in particular, as an example of what we’re capable of.
That’s where we can help him, but assisting him with the mechanics of training and youth development. It makes good sense.
Where he can help us is in helping establish our scouting systems and evaluating players for us to take a look at. This is a win-win in a region we’ve long overlooked.
It’s good of him to approach us like this. He knows the value in what we do, and I am certain that Ange will have sussed the value to ourselves. Izzy should find this one of the easiest deals he ever does in his life because there is no downside here at all.