Scotland boss granted stay of execution

A decision on George Burley’s future — or lack of one — as Scotland manager will not be made before next week, his employers at the Scottish Football Association (SFA) indicated on Thursday.

A 1-0 defeat by the Netherlands on Wednesday ended Scotland’s chances of reaching next year’s World Cup finals and is widely expected to trigger the dismissal of Burley, who has ruled out resigning in the wake of what was a deeply disappointing qualifying campaign.

A spokesman for the SFA insisted there would be no rush to pass judgement.

“There are no meetings at Hampden today regarding the campaign just passed or the manager,” he said. “The president (of the SFA, George Peat) spoke to the manager after the game last night and they agreed to meet up next week sometime.”

Burley, who replaced Alex McLeish at the helm of the national side in January 2008, has arguably not enjoyed his fair share of luck as Scotland manager with fixture scheduling, some controversial refereeing decisions and Chris Iwelumo’s open-goal miss in a pivotal goalless draw against Norway at Hampden all conspiring against his side’s chances.

He has also had to contend with Lee McCulloch and Kris Boyd calling time on their Scotland careers while he banished former captain Barry Ferguson and keeper Allan McGregor from international football after an all-night drinking session following the 3-0 away defeat to the Dutch.

His critics will argue that those issues reflected poor man management and that luck should even itself out over the course of an eight-match campaign while questioning how a Scotland squad that, under Burley’s predecessors, ran France and Italy close in qualifying for Euro 2008, could not secure at least second place in a much weaker group in this campaign.

After losing 4-0 in Norway in August — a match in which Gary Caldwell’s controversial sending-off proved pivotal — the Scots revived their chances with a 2-0 win over Macedonia on Saturday.

But despite a battling display against the Dutch, in which they hit the woodwork twice, they were unable to claim the win over the group leaders that would have given the chance of reaching the play-offs for South Africa.

Afterwards, Burley said he had no intention of walking away from the job and that he wanted to lead Scotland into the qualifying campaign for Euro 2012.

“I am manager of Scotland and proud of it. We haven’t been to a major championships in the last 12 years so there’s areas that need to be improved,” he said. “I want to continue as manager of Scotland. Of course I do.

“It is up to the SFA. But as manager of Scotland I am looking forward to the next few games.”