Graeme Souness says he missed out on the Scotland job over wage demands

Graeme Souness has revealed his fury that the SFA didn’t bother to inform him he had missed out on the Scotland job to George Burley after admitting they were put off by his wage demands.

Souness wanted the chance to replace Alex McLeish, who left for Birmingham City, in 2008 but missed out to Burley, then boss of Southampton. Souness was on a four-man shortlist along with Tommy Burns, Mark McGhee and Burley who suffered a torrid time in charge.

George Peat was President of the SFA at the time while Gordon Smith was chief executive, although he later told how Souness was his preferred candidate but was overruled by the board at the time. And Souness told talkSPORT radio: “Campbell Ogilvie, my old secretary from Rangers, was part of a three-man team. I can’t remember who the other two were but what crashed the car was when they started talking about money.

“I didn’t hear from them again and I was actually quite annoyed about it because I heard I didn’t get the job by reading George Burley had been given the job. I thought a phone call might have been in order at the time. Money wasn’t the most important thing thing but the money I was asking for wasn’t enormous. I wasn’t looking for Premier League manager’s wages, certainly not.”

Radio sidekick Simon Jordan teased: “The opportunity to manage one’s country… I invested in football and took nothing out of football so I’m one of these people who is philanthropic about it and if the opportunity came to manage my club then I wouldn’t have made it about money.”

Ex SFA chief executive Smith later spoke of his regret at unsuccessful candidates not being informed – and denied it was down to cash with Souness. He said: “I thought I was able to choose the manager being the chief executive but I wasn’t. George Burley was one of my candidates but not my first choice. It would’ve been Graeme Souness. He came along for an interview. But it went to the board…it was basically that he didn’t conform to what they were wanting.

“So George Burley became the strong candidate. He’d done well at Hearts and he was now with Southampton. I hadn’t even informed the others because if I couldn’t agree a fee for George Burley [with Southampton], that was ruling him out.

“Unfortunately what happened was the press got word, it was leaked out and the other candidates were annoyed by the fact they hadn’t been told they weren’t getting it.”