THEY used to call them the blazers. But perhaps the biggest irony of all when it comes to Stewart Regan’s decision to move on is the fact that, due in no small part to the reshaping of the committee structure recommended by Henry McLeish and brought in under the Englishman’s watch, this SFA board is something else entirely these days – a group no longer with the slightest inclination to tolerate failure.
The SFA’s critics have asked for change, and in managing to free the country of a national team manager in Gordon Strachan and a chief executive in such short order, my word, the SFA board have delivered it.
Shock perhaps wasn’t the correct word when the news that Regan had stepped down from the Scottish FA’s chief executive’s office came through but it still sent ripples across the land. Did he fall or was he pushed? Had he gallantly fallen upon his sword or simply been dispensed with in the manner of Caesar? We may perhaps never know every last detail of what transpired but such details in fact seemed less important than where the association goes from here.
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In one sense, things look incredibly bleak for our national sport as we sit here today. Without a manager, a chief executive, a national team sponsor beyond 2020, a final decision on whether we will play our football in Edinburgh or Glasgow for the next 20 years. But in a way all this turmoil could be seen to be a virtue. Calls to install Leeann Dempster of Hibs make sense in a way because this is a board who have already shown that they are prepared to dispense with the sleepy old orthodoxy of Scottish football.
Whether it is worth examining the precise make-up of this board a little further. In time Regan’s successor will have a seat, but of the remaining members it is really only Rod Petrie and Alan McCrae who could be considered anything like dusty old dinosaurs. Elsewhere, there is a freshness, new people who appear happiest living and dying by their own decisions.
Andrew McKinlay will step up to the helm in the short term, but the likes of Ian Maxwell of Partick Thistle, Mike Mulraney of Alloa, Thomas McKeown of the Scottish Amateur FA and independent non-executives such as Gary Hughes and Ana Stewart are new to this kind of thing, and happy to stir the pot a little. Stewart, an award-winning young entrepreneur, has only been on the board for a month. The blazers would be aghast.
So where do the SFA go from here? Well, firstly, it is entirely possible that this group of men and women appoint a new national team manager before they settle on the identity of their new chief executive. After all, most of these executives have appointed no shortage of managers in their careers, usually to pretty good effect. All have their own ideas how to run this sport and may have a chance to implement them.
For now, the fault lines between big and small clubs, SFA and SPFL still remain. A candidate such as Dempster has the capacity to heal such wounds, and could bring together the men’s and women’s sides of the sport.
It is an intriguing thought, but whoever comes in should bear in mind the fate which befell their predecessor.