Congerton wants to explore his options despite being considered for the position of sporting director at Celtic Park

Celtic head of recruitment Lee Congerton is poised to leave the club amid interest from abroad.

The Scottish champions want Congerton, the former Chelsea chief scout, to stay at Celtic Park, and he has even been considered as a potential candidate to become the club’s sporting director.

2 Congerton joined Celtic two years ago

However, it is understood he has told the club he is reluctant to take up that position and will explore other options.

Congerton, who was sporting director at Sunderland before joining Celtic two years ago, has been influential during his time north of the border.

He worked closely with Brendan Rodgers, the club’s former manager who left last week to take charge of Leicester, identifying and signing the likes of Olivier Ntcham, Odsonne Edouard, Timothy Weah, Filip Benkovic, Oliver Burke and Jeremy Toljan.

Congerton also played a role in bringing in winger Maryan Shved from Karpaty Lviv despite the Ukraine international being subject to more lucrative offers from elsewhere.

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The Welshman got his big break at Chelsea upon being appointed chief scout by the club’s then sporting director Frank Arnesen, and his former mentor hopes to bring him to Belgian club Anderlecht.

There has also been interest from MLS and Bundesliga as Congerton, who also worked alongside Arnesen at Hamburg, continues to hunt for a new job.

Rodgers had high praise for Congerton upon his appointment at Celtic, with the Northern Irishman claiming he discovered two Brazil internationals while they were still just teenagers.

@LCFC 2 Congerton looks set to follow Brendan Rodgers out of Celtic Park

“The reason I brought in Lee Congerton was because he’s one of the best at it,” Rodgers said. “This is the guy who found me [Philippe] Coutinho.

“When I worked at Chelsea I remember Lee was away in South America, and he came back and told me about two players who were 14 or 15.

“He said: ‘Wow, there are two players out there we’ve got to try and get’. They were Coutinho and Neymar.

“At that point no one had heard of them.

“Alexandre Pato was another one I remember that he mentioned, so the reason I’ve brought Lee in is because of that.”