Ann Budge has admitted Craig Levein WILL have an input in finding his replacements as manager and director of football at Hearts.
The Tynecastle chairwoman insisted the outgoing gaffer won’t have any official say in any appointments – but he will get feedback on his list of candidates for the roles.
Budge revealed she is targeting an “experienced and high-profile” gaffer for the Hearts hotseat – with big hitters such as Roy Keane and Sam Allardyce already linked.
She plans to restructure the club behind the scenes with a sporting director alongside a new boss, rather than a director of football above the new man in the dugout.
Levein, sacked last week, will remain at the club until the end of the season and performing some of the duties of the sporting director in the short term.
He won’t have any say on first-team matters but Budge will ask his opinion on potential new arrivals.
Budge said: “I’m not going to stop talking to Craig. If I get to a point where I’ve two or three candidates will I ask his opinion? Yes, probably.
“But what I don’t want to do is let people think he’s going to be involved in the recruitment process.
“I might ask his opinion in the same way as I would ask someone else’s opinion if I thought they were suitably qualified.
“But I’m going to be talking to Craig potentially even more than I did in the past because of the role we are shaping up.”
Budge insisted she has not been over-reliant on Levein’s influence at Tynecastle in recent years but she will discuss the new sporting director position with the ex-boss.
She said: “Will I ask Craig for input? Well, I might well do, yes. He has seen a lot more than I have but I’m also talking to a lot of other clubs because they’ve gone through this. Predominately clubs in Scotland, I’ve been talking about how they’ve done it, has it worked? Where have the problems been? I’m trying to arm myself with as much information as I can.”
Budge is well aware a section of supporters will be less than pleased with Levein still having a say.
But she said: “It’s very weird with Craig, there are some who won’t have a good word to say and others who just want him to succeed and who hold him in high regard.
“There’ll be a reaction. The very fact Craig is going to continue to be at the club creates a reaction in some peoples’ eyes, it’s very clear, ’that hasn’t worked so he has to go’.
“I have a different view of life, why throw the baby out with the bath water?”
Budge has set ground rules with the outgoing gaffer though as she wants to clear the path for the new management team.
She said: “The biggest boundary is he no longer has input into the first team because that would confuse things.
“So far there’s been 30-something applications, not counting those in my phone from the weekend. I want to ensure we get a very experienced and high-profile manager.”
