By Perry Lefko, Sportsnet.ca

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are on the prowl for a new general manager following the firing of Marcel Desjardins.

And the incoming person will have the authority to hire or fire whoever he chooses, including current head coach Charlie Taaffe.

"Ultimately the new general manager is going to have complete control over the football operations and everybody that's over there," Tiger-Cats president Scott Mitchell told Sportsnet.ca. "He'll obviously report to me, but he controls that aspect of the organization and the fate of everybody will be in the hands of the general manager."

The Ticats announced the firing of Desjardins on Monday after making the move on the weekend. Mitchell said the change had to be made after the disasterous season that just happened.

"Pretty simply put we were 3-15 and we were the worst team in the league this year and we can't afford to let that happen moving forward," Mitchell said.

Mitchell denied the move had anything to do with wanting to put his own guy in place. Mitchell joined the organization in January this year. Desjardins joined the Ticats last August after eight years with Montreal, the last five of which were in an assistant GM capacity. This was his first GM job.

"Marcel and I had come a long way in our own relationship," Mitchell said. "I would have had no problem in keeping Marcel if I thought that that was going to fix the problems we have and put us in the position I want to be in, which is contending for the Grey Cup every year."

The Desjardins firing is the latest in a series of moves that have characterized the ownership of Bob Young, who took over the team at the end of the 2003 season. Off the field the Cats have done well -- although they've had various changes in the business operations -- but the football operations has had revolving change with little success. Only once have the Cats made the playoffs in Young's tenure.

"Theoretically right now we don't need more change," Mitchell said. "With the situation we've been through, you don't automatically think we've got to change this thing for p.r. purposes. Obviously it's not a great p.r. move because people are thinking, 'All you're doing is changing again.' I think continuity is important, but only when you have the right mix.

"Marcel came in in August of last year and he had every opportunity to create a winning environment and we didn't.

"I would hope (overhauling the football operations) would not be the case, but to get the right guy, whoever that might be, he's got the authority to do it. And the end of the day, the new general manager, whoever that is, is going to be understanding his role is to make the playoffs next year. Nothing less than that is acceptable and I don't think blowing it all up all over again, starting from scratch, is the answer."

Mitchell hopes to have a new person in place by Dec. 1. He would not say if he plans to hire from a team currently in the playoffs.

Obvious candidates include Toronto Argonauts' assistant GM Greg Mohns, B.C. director of player personnel Bob O'Billovich, Roughriders player personnel director Joe Womack and former Saskatchewan GM Roy Shivers. Depending on how his team fares in the playoffs, Calgary Stampeders head coach Tom Higgins may be a possibility. There are rumours he'll need to make it to the Grey Cup to keep his job. But Higgins has managerial experience and could be a candidate to do that role or a variation of it in Edmonton, which is expected to be overhauled following two seasons of failing to make the playoffs.

Dan Rambo, hired in mid-season by Mitchell as director of football operations, is not expected to become the new GM.

"He gives us a good competitive advantage in the role that he's in," Mitchell said. "He's going to have a great role with us moving forward, but again that's going to be up to the new general manager how he wants to structure that football office."

Mitchell said "absolutely positively" he will not be the GM and that won't change in a couple of weeks, scuttling existing rumours.

"I will definitely not be the next general manager of this football team," he said. "If anyone understands what my responsibilities are with Bob, they're pretty multi-faceted, multi-layered. I think I have a contribution to give on the football side, but the new general manager will have complete authority on the football side."

Desjardins, a likeable and personable individual, made numerous trades this year, some of which resulted in public criticism when the dealt players went on to play well for other teams and the incoming players didn't make a significant impression.

"Again we were 3-15, everything goes into that," Mitchell said. "There's the aspect that obviously I didn't do my job very well. I don't think we were extremely well managed and obviously at the end of the day we were not as coached as well as we should have been. There's a lot of factors that go into it.

"If you look at all the trades together they didn't significantly make us better and that's just a fact."

Taaffe, a two-time Coach of the Year in the Canadian Football League with Montreal in 1999 and 2000, was hired in mid-December. He was Desjardins' first and only choice. After being out of the CFL for six seasons and following his late hiring, he scrambled to assemble a staff that was comprised with relatively inexperienced CFL people. Taaffe battled injuries to key personnel and repeated penalties by his players. Ultimately, Taaffe tried but couldn't change the team's losing culture.

"Both the GM and the head coach typically pick their coaching staff together and certainly when he came in late in the mix that proved to be more difficult than it should have been, but obviously we didn't have as experienced a staff as we needed," Mitchell said.