Former Scotland manager Craig Clarke has revealed that a strategic media campaign in March was necessary to prompt the Scottish Football Association (SFA) into offering him a new deal ahead of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Clarke admitted he found it “strange” that no extension had been presented by the time the season reached March, suspecting the governing body was waiting to see how far the team could progress in Qatar. Consequently, he engaged with the press to apply pressure, stating, “So I did a little bit in the media in March to give the SFA a little shove. It was like drawing teeth trying to get it over the line. But we got it over the line anyway. We negotiated non-stop from the beginning of April really to the middle of May, just before the Curacao game.”<\/p>\n
The former manager recalled issuing an ultimatum to the SFA: agree to a contract before the tournament began or he would announce his departure. He claimed the organization “panicked” and subsequently finalized the agreement.<\/p>\n
Clarke also reflected on Scotland’s exit from the group stage, where they defeated Haiti 1-0 but suffered losses to Morocco and Brazil. He noted that he always intended to leave if the team failed to advance, believing only exceptional performances would have justified staying. “I knew we needed four points. I got hammered in the media for saying that… But I was right,” he said.<\/p>\n
Following the final match against Brazil, Clarke spoke with several senior players and sensed a need for a new direction if Scotland hopes to reach the knockout stage at Euro 2028. Meanwhile, he offered his support to incoming head coach Sebastien Pocognoli, expressing confidence that even Scotland is well-placed to qualify for the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Craig Clarke reveals he used the media to pressure the SFA into offering a new contract before the World Cup, while praising successor Pocognoli’s chances at Euro 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1939,318,323,1940,627],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-craig-clarke","tag-football","tag-scotland","tag-sfa","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}