Celtic Football Club is delighted to announce that former Celtic defender and B team Head Coach Darren O’Dea has been appointed to the position of Professional Player Pathway Manager, with the aim of developing the progression of players at the club.

Reporting to the Head of Celtic’s Youth Academy, in this important new role Darren will work with the first-team manager, Brendan Rodgers, the Head of Academy Coaching and the club’s B Team and Academy Coaches, ensuring the effective development of players to play for Celtic.

Through the development and maintenance of strong relationships with clubs across leagues, both within Scotland and further afield, the role will also manage loan opportunities which support the player pathway and development opportunities.

Darren said: “I am really looking forward to giving everything to this exciting new opportunity.

"Having been being fortunate enough to be part of a Celtic first-team environment in my career I am passionate about working to give other young players this same opportunity.

"In this new role, I will be working between our Academy structure and the first-team environment to ensure that we do all we can to provide the very best pathway and levels of support to allow our young players to reach their full potential and to ultimately deliver at first-team level.”

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers added: "Celtic has such a rich history of creating and developing its own players and is something which I am hugely passionate about.

"This important new position will allow us to give real focus to ensuring the very best possible pathway and level of support to bringing our younger players successfully into the first-team environment, so they too can create their own history at the club.

"Darren has great experience in this area and he is the perfect candidate to work between our Academy and first team and I am sure his work will achieve very positive results for the club and our supporters."

Chris McCart, Head of Celtic's Youth Academy, said: "We are delighted that Darren has been appointed to this role, which we believe will be very important in preparing our young players and allowing them to flourish and ultimately be part of our first team.

"Darren has a huge knowledge of the club, our Academy and, of course, the first-team environment and so he is very well qualified to be managing this really important area of player progression. Everyone at the Club congratulates him on his new appointment."

Darren O’Dea appointed as Professional Player Pathway Manager