John Angus Paul Collins (born 31 January 1968) is a Scottish professional

football manager ''Football Manager'' (also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008) is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

and former

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He played for Hibernian,

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

AS Monaco Association Sportive de Monaco Football Club SA, commonly referred to as AS Monaco () or Monaco, is a professional football club based in Monaco that is member of French Football Federation (FFF) and competes in Ligue 1, the top tier of Fre ...

, Everton and

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

in a 19-year career. Collins also represented

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

58 times, scoring in the opening match of the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

against

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. He started his coaching career as

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

of Hibernian, winning the 2007 Scottish League Cup Final, but resigned later that year. He then had a brief spell as manager of

Charleroi Charleroi ( , , ; wa, Tchålerwè ) is a city and a municipality of Wallonia, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. By 1 January 2008, the total population of Charleroi was 201,593.

in 2009. Collins was appointed

director of football A sporting director, or director of sport, is an executive management position in a sports club. The role is well known as a manager role for European football clubs, which are sometime also "sports clubs", offering many types of sports. The sport ...

Livingston Livingston may refer to: Businesses * Livingston Energy Flight, an Italian airline (2003–2010) * Livingston Compagnia Aerea, an Italian airline (2011–2014), also known as Livingston Airline * Livingston International, a North American custom ...

in February 2012, but resigned a year later. He then assisted

Ronny Deila Ronny Deila (born 21 September 1975) is a Norwegian football manager and former player, who is the manager of Standard Liège. He spent most of his playing career at Odd before becoming head coach at Strømsgodset, winning the Norwegian Cup in ...

at Celtic for two years. Collins has also worked in media coverage of football.

Playing career

Hibernian

As a youngster, Collins played both

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

and football before turning his attention entirely to football. At youth level, he played for

Hutchison Vale Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale Football Club (LTHV) are a senior non-league football club based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Currently competing in the , they play their home matches at Saughton Enclosure in the Saughton area of the city. History ...

between 1980 and 1984, captaining the side for four years, before signing as a professional with Hibernian. Collins played with the ''Hibees'' for six seasons, making his debut in 1985 aged 17, appearing 195 times and scoring 21 goals. During his spell at

Easter Road Easter Road is a football stadium located in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland, which is the home ground of Scottish Premiership club Hibernian (Hibs). The stadium currently has an all-seated capacity of , which makes it the fifth-larges ...

, he was named the

PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year The PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year, formerly known as the Scottish PFA Young Player of the Year, is named at the end of every Scottish football season. The members of the Professional Footballers' Association Scotland vote on which of its ...

for 1988.

Celtic

Collins signed for

in 1990, becoming their first million pound player. He generally played on the left side of midfield, scoring 55 goals in 273 appearances. In April 1994, he became the first professional footballer using

Adidas Predator Adidas Predator are a range of football boots developed by German sportswear manufacturers Adidas, introduced in 1994. The common feature of the Predator range is the presence of rubber patches or strips on the top of the shoe, designed to increas ...

boots to score a goal in a top-level match: he scored the opening goal of a 1–1 draw at Ibrox against Rangers, direct from a free-kick on the edge of the penalty box. He repeated that feat from almost the same position in the next

Old Firm The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply em ...

meeting at the same venue in August of the same year. During his time at Celtic he won only one trophy; the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

Monaco

Collins moved to

in the summer of 1996 on a free transfer under the

Bosman ruling ''Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman'' (1995) C-415/93 (known as the Bosman ruling) is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of association ...

; Under the direction of

Fergus McCann Fergus John McCann (born 26 February 1941) is a Scottish–Canadian businessman and entrepreneur. Biography McCann's wealth stemmed initially from a golf vacation company, based in Montreal and Phoenix. He is best known for his involvement in C ...

, Celtic attempted to obtain compensation for the loss of Collins, arguing that the Bosman ruling did not apply to this case because AS Monaco were based in the principality of

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

and outside of

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

jurisdiction. The compensation claim was not successful. Collins won the

French championship The French rugby league championship (french: Le Championnat de France de Rugby à XIII) has been the major rugby league tournament for semi-professional and professional clubs in France since the sport was introduced to the country in the 1930s. ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

with Monaco, who then reached the semi-final of the

1997–98 UEFA Champions League The 1997–98 UEFA Champions League was the 43rd season of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA's premier club association football, football tournament, and the sixth since its re-branding from the "European Champion Clubs' Cup" or "European Cup". The ...

, defeating

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

in the quarter-final before losing to

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

Later career

Collins moved to Everton in the summer of 1998 for £2 million. He captained Everton before submitting a transfer request in 2000. He then joined

, where he linked up with

Jean Tigana Amadou Jean Tigana (born 23 June 1955) is a French former footballer and coach. He has played in midfield and managed professional football extensively throughout France, including 52 appearances and one goal for the France national football team ...

, who had been his manager at Monaco. Collins helped Fulham gain promotion to the Premier League in 2001. He retired in 2003, having not played regularly during the 2002–03 season.

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

offered to sign Collins on loan, but this offer was refused by Fulham because it did not cover his wages fully. In February 2014, Collins registered as a player with Gala Fairydean Rovers, a club who he had been ambassador for.

International

Collins won 58

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

and scored 12 goals for

. He played for his country at

Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 ...

and the 1998 World Cup. He scored a goal in the opening match of that World Cup, with a

penalty kick A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...

against

. He retired from international football after the aggregate defeat in the

UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying play-offs The UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying play-offs were the last round of qualifying competition for UEFA Euro 2000. They were contested by the eight lowest-ranked runners-up from the nine first round groups of the UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying tournament. The wi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in November 1999.

Coaching career

After retiring from club football in 2003, Collins spent time in Monaco with his family, while also obtaining coaching qualifications including the

UEFA Pro Licence UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, mandates several coaching licences for professional managers, each valid for coaching at a certain level. These include the UEFA Pro Licence, the UEFA A Licence, and the UEFA B Licence. They are iss ...

. On 31 October 2006, Collins was appointed as

of Hibernian. Collins led Hibernian to their first national trophy in over 15 years, when they defeated

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

5–1 in the 2007 Scottish League Cup Final. Despite the League Cup victory, Collins had a major dispute with his players just weeks later. A delegation of players met chairman Rod Petrie, where they complained about his training methods and match tactics. The players soon backed down and captain Rob Jones offered a public apology to Collins on their behalf. On 20 December 2007, Collins resigned from Hibernian with immediate effect, citing a disagreement with the Hibs board about the budget to bring in new players. His decision was taken just one day after the club opened new training facilities. Collins had also said in October 2007 that he had "no intention" of breaking his contract with Hibs, after turning down a possibility of becoming

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...

manager.

Lawrie Sanchez Lawrence Philip Sanchez (born 22 October 1959) is a Northern Irish football manager and former international footballer. The defining moment of his playing career came in the 1988 FA Cup Final, when he scored the winning goal for Wimbledon ag ...

was sacked by

the next day, which led to reports that Collins might move there. Collins distanced himself from this speculation, and

Roy Hodgson Roy Hodgson (born 9 August 1947) is a former English football manager and player. He managed 22 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstads BK in the 1976 season. He later guided the Switzerland national team to th ...

was appointed by Fulham a week later. Collins was interviewed by

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

in September 2008. On 15 December 2008, Collins was appointed as the manager of Belgian club

Charleroi Charleroi ( , , ; wa, Tchålerwè ) is a city and a municipality of Wallonia, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. By 1 January 2008, the total population of Charleroi was 201,593.

. Collins was reunited with former Hibs striker

Abdessalam Benjelloun Abdessalam Benjelloun (born 28 January 1985) is a Moroccan professional footballer who plays as a forward for Raja Beni Mellal. Benjelloun started his career in his native Morocco, before moving to Scottish Premier League club Hibernian in 200 ...

, but Benjelloun was almost immediately returned to Hibs before being loaned to another Belgian club,

Roeselare Roeselare (; french: Roulers, ; West Flemish: ''Roeseloare'') is a Belgian city and municipality in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Roeselare proper and the towns of Beveren, Oekene and Rumbeke. The ...

. Collins announced his departure from Charleroi after the club secured their First Division status near the end of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

. Collins was appointed

in February 2012. He agreed to play for his old amateur club Gala Rovers in a friendly against a Livingston XI on 25 July 2012. He left the club on 28 February 2013, after Collins disagreed with a decision to remove Gareth Evans from first team coaching. In June 2014, Collins was appointed to the position of assistant manager at

. He left the club at the end of the 2015–16 season, at the same time as Deila.

Media work

Collins has appeared on the

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

coverage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

and

Sportscene ''Sportscene'' is the name of a range of Scottish sports television programmes produced by BBC Scotland. History ''Sportscenes predecessors were ''Sports Special from Scotland'' and ''Sportsreel'', which was broadcast every Saturday at around 5 ...

's coverage of

games. He worked for

CBC Sports CBC Sports is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for English-language sports broadcasting. The CBC's sports programming primarily airs on CBC Television, CBCSports.ca, and CBC Radio One. (The CBC's French-languag ...

during their coverage of the

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

Career statistics

International

:''Scores and results list Scotland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Collins goal''.

Managerial record

Honours

Player

Celtic *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. A ...

: 1997 Fulham *

Football League Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...

: 2000–01 *

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

Manager

Hibernian *

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League Cup in existen ...

: 2007

Individual

Scotland national football team roll of honour The International Roll of Honour is a list established by the Scottish Football Association recognising players who have gained 50 or more international caps for Scotland. The roll of honour was launched in February 1988, when 11 players had alrea ...

: 1998

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, John 1968 births 1990 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players AS Monaco FC players Association football midfielders Celtic F.C. non-playing staff Celtic F.C. players Everton F.C. players Expatriate football managers in Belgium Expatriate footballers in France Expatriate footballers in Monaco Fulham F.C. players Gala Fairydean Rovers F.C. players Hibernian F.C. managers Hibernian F.C. players Ligue 1 players Living people Livingston F.C. non-playing staff People educated at Galashiels Academy People from Galashiels Premier League players R. Charleroi S.C. managers Scotland international footballers Scotland under-21 international footballers Scottish expatriate footballers Scottish expatriate sportspeople in France Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Monaco Scottish Football League players Scottish football managers Scottish expatriate football managers Scottish footballers Scottish Premier League managers Sportspeople from the Scottish Borders English Football League players UEFA Euro 1996 players Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale F.C. players