The rumours of who will become Celtic’s Sporting Director or Director of Football took a huge blow this afternoon as Belgium announced Head Coach, Roberto Martinez will remain in the role despite his teams disappointing Euro’s quarter final exit.
The Belgians were huge favourites for the title this year but suffered a 2-1 defeat to Italy.
The Chief Executive of the Belgian FA, Peter Bossaert, confirmed to in a press conference that Martinez will carry on as normal as he has a contract which takes Martinez to the 2022 World Cup, “Today we start preparations for the September and October games. Roberto Martinez will be there. No official communication will follow, but there is no reason to change the staff.
“I don’t have the feeling he will step down. There is no problem with him at the moment. There will be no real evaluation because, as with any successful business, we have a culture of permanent evaluation.”
There was no update on whether Shaun Maloney would remain as part of Martinez backroom team but it is widely expected that he will stay with Martinez until the end of the next major championships.
This is a potential blow to Celtic as Maloney was heavily linked with a return to Paradise to take the role Director of Football/Sporting Director and it seems now that with this latest announcement, that seems dead in the water.
It is still not clear if Celtic were still going down the route of having a Sporting Director or Director of Football but this latest announcement will surely be a blow to the Hoops.
