John Kennedy has no worries over Celtic recruitment after Nick Hammond exit

Interim boss John Kennedy insists the recruitment process at Celtic is continuing despite the departure of Nick Hammond.

The Parkhead club announced on Wednesday night that their head of football operations had resigned to “pursue new opportunities”.

Celtic are currently in search of a new manager after Neil Lennon resigned in February, while chief executive Peter Lawwell is leaving at the end of the season to be replaced by Dominic McKay who is moving from Scottish Rugby.

Ahead of the Scottish Cup third-round tie against League One side Falkirk, Kennedy said: “Obviously Nick made the decision to look for a new challenge and has moved on. He is a terrific guy with a fantastic work ethic.

“He came in and set up a lot of processes behind the scenes that people won’t know about to get us covering more areas around the world, bringing in more personnel to look at more players.

“Recruitment was one facet of Nick’s job, across different areas, but we still have a recruitment team, we still have a chief scout, head of recruitment so all the processes and personnel are still there.

“The heads of departments, Peter, Neil, Nick, are changing but underneath that the work still goes on and the board will decide what is the best way to move forward.

“That is above me, board level, they will make the decisions but behind the scenes things will very much keep moving forward the way they do.”

Celtic will have another exit to deal with at the end of the season, with skipper Scott Brown leaving the club, and Kennedy admits he is disappointed about the midfielder’s departure.

The 35-year-old will move to Aberdeen in a player-coach role in the summer after 14 success-laden years at Celtic Park.

Kennedy said: “It is obviously disappointing for us.

“We would have loved to have kept him at the cub because he is such an important figure and he has been for such a considerable period of time, with huge success.

“We felt he still had more in the tank but he seen a new challenge he wants to take on and we have to respect that.”