Football: Olsen wanted across Europe
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Your support makes all the difference.CELTIC will have to come up with a highly attractive offer if they are to tempt Norway's coach, Egil Olsen, to lead them into the Champions' League next year.
The 56-year-old Olsen has emerged as one of the front-runners for the Parkhead post vacated by Wim Jansen's resignation last week. But Celtic are reported to be only one of 10 European clubs who have approached Olsen's agent to check on his availability.
Olsen intends to step down as national coach after leading Norway to their third World Cup under his guidance in France, where they are in the same group as Scotland. But such is his involvement with his country - twice working previously with the Under-21 team and also the Olympic team before taking over control of the full squad in 1990 - that he is reluctant to leave.
Olsen already has another job lined up with the Sports Academy in Norway and has also been offered a continuing 'analyst' role with the Norwegian football association. His unwillingness to uproot his family and three- year-old daughter is another factor that may see his name deleted from the Parkhead shortlist.
Olsen has also been linked with the vacancy at Sheffield Wednesday - but Ron Atkinson, who was dismissed by the Hillsborough club a week ago, yesterday tipped the Football Association's technical director, Howard Wilkinson, to succeed him in the job.
"If you ask me who will get the job, my own bet by a distance, would be Howard Wilkinson," Atkinson said. He feels that the South Yorkshire club's chairman Dave Richards, a vice-president of the FA and one of the Premier League's representatives on the FA council, is now looking to Wilkinson to return to the club he guided between 1983 and 1988.
Wilkinson was Wednesday's No 1 one target six months ago when David Pleat was sacked and the only stumbling block is the remaining two-and-a-half years of his contract with the FA. But Atkinson now believes Richards would be willing to pay the estimated pounds 250,000 in compensation it would take to prise Wilkinson away from Lancaster Gate.
Jansen has also been linked with the job. Yesterday he returned home to the Netherlands to contemplate his future after his acrimonious departure from Celtic. He has already turned down an approach to coach Vitesse Arnhem and it is believed he is not interested in taking over at Hillsborough, with many offers from across Europe pouring in for his services.
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