There has been a rise of American businessmen in the boardrooms at Scottish football clubs in recent years, with the arrival of Ron Gordon at Hibernian, John Nelms at Dundee and Mark Ogren down the street at Dundee United. It is not all one-way traffic, however. For the past two decades Steve Livingstone has been the Scot dispensing his wisdom on the other side of the Atlantic, and now he is planning to bring a little bit of Celtic – a club dear to his heart – to US soccer.
Before he was a sports executive, Livingstone was a well-kent face on the sports desks of Scottish newspapers. Later still, he was general manager of the Scottish Claymores before his association with the franchise took him into the corridors of power at the NFL in the US with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
North Florida has been his home for 20 years during which time he has held a number of positions including as a senior consultant to Celtic from 2016 to 2020. For all of his experience in a cutthroat world, he has lost none of his down-to-earth manner or avuncular demeanour. Something else which remains intact is his sense of where he came from and so when he gives an example of something it usually has a Glaswegian reference point.
