Rotherham United have appointed former England manager Steve McClaren as their new head of football, handing the 65-year-old a freshly created role after the club’s relegation to League Two last month.
McClaren will provide strategic leadership to chairman Tony Stewart and the board on football matters, and his first job will be helping Rotherham find a new manager. The move comes after Lee Clark departed at the end of the season, following the club’s failure to stay in the third tier.
Stewart said he was looking forward to seeing the value McClaren’s unrivalled experience would bring to the club. He said the former England coach would give the board “a new voice and a pair of eyes and ears” with experience of how clubs reach optimal performance at both top-level club football and on the international stage.
The appointment gives Rotherham an experienced figure to shape its football direction at a difficult moment. The club finished 23rd in the third tier and 11 points from safety, and the board has now turned to a man whose career has taken him through some of the game’s most demanding jobs.
McClaren managed Middlesbrough between 2001 and 2006, winning the League Cup and leading the club to the final of the old Uefa Cup in 2006. He then joined England, leaving after failing to qualify for Euro 2008. Since then he has had spells at Nottingham Forest, Derby County, Newcastle United and QPR, along with two spells at Dutch side FC Twente and a season in Germany with Wolfsburg.
Before his move to Jamaica, McClaren spent two years as assistant to Erik ten Hag at Manchester United, and he previously served as Sir Alex Ferguson’s number two at the club. He resigned as Jamaica coach in November after the team failed to secure automatic qualification to this summer’s World Cup.
Stewart said conversations with McClaren had been ongoing for some time so both sides could reach a clear understanding of what the role would involve and where they believed the club could progress. He added that McClaren’s CV spoke for itself and that his enthusiasm and desire to enact positive changes had impressed the club.
For Rotherham, the appointment signals a deliberate attempt to rebuild from the top after a damaging season ended with relegation and a managerial departure. For McClaren, it is another chance to shape a club’s direction, this time from a newly created post designed to steer the football operation rather than manage it from the touchline.
