Mathie has a ‘global’ vision of Hibs future

Newly appointed Hibs sporting director Graeme Mathie has plans to make the Easter Road outfit “more global” and revealed he hopes to secure partnerships with clubs all over Europe.

He said yesterday that talks are already underway with he described as two “really big” clubs.

Mathie will take up the newly created post on 1 January following George Craig’s decision to step down as head of football operations.

Mathie has been head of player identification and recruitment at Easter Road since the summer of 2014.

Before arriving in Edinburgh, Mathie worked with the SFA and Celtic following a playing career with Coventry, Bournemouth, Motherwell, Ayr, East Fife and Albion Rovers.

He said: “This is a role that I am hugely excited about and I understand and relish the responsibility to help deliver success for this great club.”

Recalling the high of Hibs’ Scottish Cup win over Rangers in 2016, Mathie acknowledged his job is now to bring more such days to the club,

He added: “There is no evidence to suggest that the club has competed at a level consistently.

“I think there’s only been four or five back-to-back

top-four finishes in the last 45 or 50 years. We have to consider how to change that.

“There’s ultimately a challenge to make the club more global. That will have an impact potentially on some of the markets we look at for recruiting players. It will definitely involve how we actually look at learning and developing the people we have here.

“Part of it will definitely be tying up some partnerships with a number of different clubs all over Europe. There are two in particular that we are speaking to at the moment, really big European clubs that we can learn a lot from in terms of how they do things, the way they coach, the way they work.”

Mathie also revealed Hibs are looking at similar tie-ups with smaller clubs abroad which could help provide youngsters at the city club’s academy to experience football and the cultures of different countries.