Scots get their man

Berti Vogts will be in charge of Scotland from 1 March

Berti Vogts will take over as the new Scotland manager, with effect from 1 March.

The Scottish Football Association has eventually landed its number one target after reaching a compensation agreement with its Kuwaiti counterparts.

SFA chief executive David Taylor said: "I am delighted that our negotiations to secure Berti Vogts for Scotland have gone so well and that we have reached the end of a long road.

"I would also like to thank the Kuwait FA for their help and co-operation.

"Berti will begin work with us on 1 March, which means he will be able to prepare fully for Scotland's match against France on 27 March.

Gulf Cup flop

"But before then he will join us for the important Euro 2004 dates planning meeting in Frankfurt next week."

Taylor will now return to Scotland with Berti Vogts, and they plan to unveil the new coach at a press conference at Hampden Park on Friday morning.

The agreement means that by the time Vogts takes over, almost five months will have passed since Craig Brown stepped down minutes after the failure to qualify for the World Cup finals was confirmed.

In January, Vogts admitted he was "very interested" in taking over the Scotland national team, but insisted he would not take over until February at the earliest.

Talks took place between the SFA and Vogts, but the Kuwaitis insisted no negotiations between the two federations would take place until the Gulf Cup tournament was completed.

Kuwait failed to sparkle in that competition and there was speculation that Vogts would be sacked.

Rankings slip

But that did not happen and the Kuwaitis insisted on a compensation package for an early release from the German's contract, which was due to expire in August.

Vogts replaced Franz Beckenbauer as German national coach after the World Cup win in Italia 90.

But Germany lost out to Denmark in the European Championship in 1992 and then missed out at the quarter-final stages of the World Cup in the United States.

Germany captured Euro '96, but flopped at the 1998 World Cup and were beaten by Croatia in the last eight.

Vogts stepped down and returned to club management, taking Bayer Leverkusen to fourth in the Bundesliga before leaving in May 2001.

The news of his latest appointment comes on the day Scotland slipped out of Fifa's top 50 world rankings.

Scotland are now rated 51, behind such countries as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran.