Rangers have made a start to the rebuild off the pitch with a CEO and chairman in place.
Patrick Stewart wants to hire a sporting director to add resilience alongside Nils Koppen and to lighten the load.
He also wants one to lead the appointment of a new Rangers manager, however, despite the 49ers Enterprises takeover not being ratified just yet, they will also play their part.
As well as for long-term commercial reasons, having access to the San Francisco 49ers hierarchy is also an additional benefit with one individual in particular playing a key role.
Gretar Steinsson is the 49ers technical director having held similar roles at Fleetwood Town when his playing days finished, at Tottenham Hotspur and Everton, and he will also help appoint the next occupier of the Ibrox hotseat, according to Chris Jack of The Rangers Review.
Photo by Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
Photo by Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
In an article in The Athletic in 2023, Steisson was discussed at length with some of his personality traits looking ideal for life in Glasgow:
“He’s like a pit bull — if he sees something and wants something, he goes for it,” said Marcel Brands, who was sporting director of Everton when he hired Steinsson.
“He would walk out and say to the groundsman, ‘Why is your pitch s***?’”, remembers one observer who dealt with Steinsson when he was technical director at Fleetwood Town, in League One. “People would be saying, ‘Gretar, why are you saying that?’ And his reaction would be, ‘But the pitch is s***’.”
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Brands also revealed the depth to which Steinsson would get involved at Fleetwood:
“Gretar was involved in the whole structure of the club, not just the first team. He was very involved in scouting but also in the first team and under-23s — he was at the games, he was at the youth academy.
“That’s a good sign because a lot of people only want to be involved with the first team. But he knew everything was important.
“He’s a guy that you can absolutely trust and rely on, who wants to work day and night.”
When Steinsson appointed Carlo Ancelotti
At 41-years old, Steinsson has Leeds United, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur on his CV already, even if he isn’t going to be involved in Rangers appointment of a sporting director, his experience will be invaluable.
Yes, there might be alarm bells for some given the mixed fortunes of the three sleeping giants, but at each club, he did a lot of good work behind the scenes.
There is never one individual responsible for everything, however, as head of recruitment, Steinsson helped to pull off a major coup at Everton.
Rafa Benitez and Frank Lampard might not have been as successful, but the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti was as big as they come.
Given who the Italian had managed in the past and what he has gone into since 2020, Everton missed a trick not giving him the right infrastructure to succeed on Merseyside.
Maybe Steinsson could persuade Ancelotti to come to Ibrox if his time, as expected, At Real Madrid comes to an end in the summer.