In recent times, it has been rumoured Celtic will go down the route of hiring a Director of Football to work alongside the incoming Dominic McKay and whoever the manager is in place come the summer.

Fergal Harkin’s name has been bandied about in the press as of late [SunSport], so we thought we’d have a look at who he is and what he could bring to Celtic if appointed to the role.

Right now, it’s more than common knowledge our current CEO skews too far into the football side of things than he perhaps should.

We need football minded people in charge of the football side, and businessmen in charge of the business side, it’s not rocket science.

So who is Fergal Harkin?

Profile photo of Fergal Harkin

Fergal Harkin is currently Manchester City’s football partnerships manager.

During his playing career, he did share a dressing room with Neil Lennon and Martin O’Neill at one point when he spent an 18-month stint at Leicester.

The rest of his playing career happened back in Ireland before the Irishman forged a career in football off the pitch.

Away from the game, Harkin rose up the ranks at Nike and became the marketing manager at the global sporting brand.

The Irishman was snapped up by Manchester City in 2009 and he’s been working at the Etihad in some capacity since then.

His roles at the club:

  • Scouting and Recruitment Information Manager
  • Football Partnerships Coordinator
  • Football Partnerships and Pathways Manager

The latter role being the job Fergal does for the English club at the moment.

We understand Pathways manager handles a lot of the loan players coming in and out of the club. Manchester City snap up and send on talent on a regular basis and Fergal is the man in the middle.

This could be to Celtic’s advantage. Working at a club like Manchester City and forming so many connections throughout the years as well as a great understanding of the market Celtic will be shopping.

It’s believed Celtic have had dealings with the Harkin over the years and he was part of the reason why Celtic managed to land Jeremie Frimpong over 18 months ago. The club making a large profit from that move already.

Fergal manages a team who run a whole analytical network on the players’ City have out on loan and so much thought and process is put into how they do business.

On the face of it, this could be a shrewd piece of business and a potential game changer by Celtic. We need a total revamp, we need someone with a knowledge of young players and analytics to help with recruitment.

We’ll keep an eye on things and see if anything develops over the coming months,

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