CALL TO ARMS

Mackay wants top managers to drive home Project Brave

MALKY MACKAY has implored Scotland’s leading bosses to be the driving force behind Project Brave.

The product of a nine-month working group, the plan is designed to provide a radical solution for Scottish football, essentially aimed at improving the way the country develops footballers.

Currently on a tour of duty around the 42 senior clubs, the new SFA performance director has already been buoyed by the feedback received from the managers he has encountered.

Promoting a fresh strategy that would see — among other things — the reintroduction of the reserve league, a reduction in the number of academies and their players as well as financial incentives for clubs to promote Scottish talent, Mackay insists that he has encountered only limited resistance to date.

And the 45-year-old, who discussed the project with Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers over dinner last night, believes its success will hinge on the willingness of the key bosses to view it as a help to their clubs rather than some kind of hindrance.

‘Project Brave is the

performance strategy for Scottish football, not the Scottish Football Association,’ Mackay stated. ‘It is for the betterment of Scottish football. I am asking for everyone’s help and for everyone to be involved in this. ‘I have to go to every club and ask them to help and say that we are sitting next to them, not sitting across from them. ‘I will be asking the Premier League managers for their help, without a doubt. Brendan is somebody I know pretty well from my time at Watford and down in England. ‘Derek McInnes is another one who has already offered help in terms of going and talking to the international teams, taking an international team training session. ‘I have also been to see Neil Lennon at Hibs, while Craig Levein works along the corridor from me (at Oriam). ‘These are guys who are absolutely at the sharp end, guys who have been there, seen it and done it already. ‘I was down seeing Sir Alex Ferguson on Friday and I plan to talk to Walter Smith, Craig Brown and Andy Roxburgh. ‘We need as many helpers as possible involved in this to try and make things better.’ Asked how important it was that the leading figures in our game lead from the front, Mackay replied: ‘You need your top managers and top people in the country buying into this. ‘If we talk about this as being for the betterment of the young Scottish player, nobody will argue against that. ‘Where our league is going, there are a lot of young Scottish players starting to emerge. ‘With the loans and the reserves, hopefully, clubs start to look and decide not to throw money on cheap foreign imports, where most don’t work out. ‘Hopefully, we start going back to a time where we are bringing through good young Scots again.’ Speaking as he cast his eye over the next intake of performance school players at Braidhurst High School in Motherwell, Mackay revealed he intended to appoint a head of coaching to facilitate the mentoring and ongoing improvement of our coaches. ‘We are not good at mentoring coaches in this country,’ he added. ‘We are failing our coaches as far as that’s concerned. ‘We give them the driving licence and then, two years later, we expect them to drive a Formula One car. ‘They crash it and people wonder why. It’s because we never taught them to be a Formula One driver. We taught them to be a driver. ‘What we have got to do and what I am going to do going forward is bring in a head of coaching. ‘Myself, him and the national coaches will be out in the clubs. ‘I have asked the clubs about this and they have all said: “Yes, absolutely. Why would we not want you to come and help our coaches?” ‘It will become standard practice that an SFA coach will go into the club, watch coaching, watch the Scottish players, and tweak what the coach does.’