Ange Postecoglou has made history by becoming the first Greek and Australian to manage an English Premier League side by signing for Tottenham Hotspurs.
"We are delighted to announce the appointment of Ange Postecoglou as our new Head Coach on a four-year contract," Tottenham Hotspurs wrote on Twitter.
Celtic Chief Executive, Michael Nicholson said: “It has been a pleasure working with Ange, a great football manager and a good man. He has served the Club with such energy and determination and delivered a phenomenal level of success.
“I would like to thank him for all he has given us and I wish Ange and his family the very best for the future in everything they do.
“Of course, we wanted Ange to stay with us at Celtic and while there is real disappointment that we are losing him, he has decided he wants to look at a new challenge, which we respect.
“As Treble-winning champions, the Club looks ahead with confidence to the future, with many exciting opportunities ahead. The Club appreciates the tremendous support from Celtic fans this season and we will continue to build from this position of unity and strength.”
Ange Postecoglou said: “I would like to sincerely thank everyone at the Club for everything they have given me. In particular, Dermot, Peter and Michael and the Celtic Board have shown me tremendous support in every aspect of my time at Celtic and I will forever be grateful for this.
"They brought me to the Club and I have worked so closely and so well with them for the past two years, I will always have a special relationship with them.
“They wanted me to extend my time at Celtic and while I am so respectful and understanding of their position, a new opportunity has been presented to me and it is one which I wanted to explore.
“It was an honour to be asked to be Celtic manager and during my two years I have given everything I have to deliver success to our supporters. Culminating in the Treble at the weekend, my players and backroom team have been brilliant for me on this journey.
"They have given us all some fantastic moments through their energy and effort, creating real quality, winning football.
“Our supporters have been magnificent to me and I thank them for the way they have embraced me during the past two years. My ambition was always to give our fans a team they could be proud of, a team people talked about and I think we have achieved that.
“Celtic is a phenomenal football club, and so much more - and I will forever be a supporter of this great institution. I wish everyone connected with Celtic nothing but continued success.”
Peter Lawwell, Celtic Chairman added: “Against any measure, Ange has delivered a fantastic level of success to Celtic and we thank him for his brilliant contribution to the Club during the past two years.
“We were delighted to bring Ange to Celtic. He is a special manager who has had success wherever he has been and someone who brought to the club attacking, stylish and winning football in the best traditions of Celtic.
“Of course, we are disappointed that Ange has decided to leave the Club, and we did all we could to keep him with us well into the future, but he wanted to take this new opportunity and we wish Ange well in this and everything else he does.
“Now our focus is very much on ensuring we move forward positively and do all we can to ensure that we maintain our dominant position in Scottish football and also prepare for the exciting European challenges which lie ahead.”
Celtic Captain Callum McGregor added: “It has been great to work with the gaffer over the past two seasons and to achieve the success that we have, especially achieving yet another Treble at the weekend.
“In fact, to win five out of six domestic trophies is a tremendous achievement and that is testament to the real focus and relentlessness of the manager, the players and our whole backroom team who have all worked so hard.
“I thank all our supporters again for what they have given us this year. The scenes at Hampden and Celtic Park, when we celebrated our success together will stay with me forever.
“We have delivered something very special to our fans and done it, under the manager’s direction by playing an exciting and attractive brand of football. As all the players do, I wish Ange great success in his next challenge.
“We move on ourselves to our own challenges too. Our performances this season mean we will take our place deservedly in the Champions League and we can’t wait for it.
"It will be brilliant to have these great nights back at Celtic Park and I am sure our fans are looking forward to experiencing this again, as well as watching us striving to defend all our domestic titles.
“The players will enjoy a well-earned break and when we return we will get right behind the new manager, we will be united and, as ever, will do all we can to bring our fans continued success.”
The 57-year-old Greek-Australian took over the reins at Spurs today after winning the domestic treble with Celtic following a season of free-flowing attacking football which has made plenty of clubs sit up and take notice of the Greek-born Australian. It is Tottenham who have prised away Postecoglou and he is someone who wants his players to feel that they are part of something special.
In an insightful podcast recorded three years ago for Anthony Hudson's Masterminds - Elite Coach Development series, Postecoglou said: "I want to do things that are different. I want to do things that stand out. I want people to talk about my teams beyond just the success they have. I want the players to feel like they're part of something special that they haven't experienced before. Those kind of things really drive me and excite me.
"Around the world, whenever I see someone doing anything that's a little bit different in any walk of life, sport, science, whatever it may be, it really intrigues and excites me because I think of the bravery and character it must have taken to take that leap and the way they must have made people believe in them, it's something that really resonates with me."
One thing people have said about Postecoglou over the years is that while his players would run through walls for him, the Aussie maintains a distance from them and it's something he admits is very deliberate.
"If you talk to all of the players that I've coached over the years they'll probably be consistent in saying that they've never had a conversation of longer than a minute with me in the whole time. It's just me as a person. I'm not a great social sort of beast in life in general, in terms of particularly my professional environment," he explained.
"I do keep a distance from the players and it takes a while for the players to get used to that for the most part. I understand that, they're human beings and they want that connection and that feedback. They want to know that you're engaged with them and my way of keeping my distance can be a little bit disconcerting.
"Over the course of time what I think happens is that the players and staff kind of understand that it's just me and they know that I treat everyone the same. They know I do care about them and I care about them in my own way. When critical times come I've got their back and I take that responsibility.
"After a while I think they appreciate that and they understand that 'ok there's no favouritism here, he treats everyone the same whether that's the president or chairman of the club or the boot man, or the first player on the list or the last player on the list'. I've always worked that way."
He added: "I was almost forced to do it in my first coaching job. I retired young and got into coaching early. I was 30-years-old and I coached the club I played for. A lot of the guys I was coaching were my former team-mates, one of them was my best mate. I had to separate myself one day to the next. It was tough, particularly for the guys I'd played with and that I considered mates, but as a manager I've got to make decisions every day.
"The one thing about your existence in this job is that every day you're making decisions. People when they speak to you want decisions from you, whether it's about training, the schedule, the team and we need knowledge to make good decisions, more good than bad, and you need clarity of thought. Me keeping a distance from players or staff, whenever I make a decision whether it's about staff or the way we're going to play, it's almost unemotional in the way that I make it. I will make the decision that is best for the team and what we want to achieve.
"I've found that that works best for me as a manager. I treat everyone the same but I do feel that I wouldn't have had success if the players didn't feel close to me. It's just a different kind of closeness than maybe people see from the outside. I guarantee that if you interview any player that I've coached in the past 20 years they'll give you the same answer if you ask them what the longest conversation they've had with the boss.
"They'll say no more than a minute and if anything if I did catch up with them after they stopped playing and I did have a little bit of chat with them they found it a little bit disconcerting that I was now speaking to them because I wasn't their coach."