GIANNI INFANTINO’S surname derives from the Italian for a child with lordly disposition so perhaps it is appropriate that today in Zurich this baby-faced assassin is attempting to acquire the biggest job in world football by the age of just 45.

If bookmakers are to be believed, this afternoon in Switzerland will see a rare check being placed on Infantino’s world domination plans but the fate of Charles Dempsey – perhaps the most easily intimidated native of Maryhill in history – only demonstrates the folly of making hard and fast predictions about FIFA elections.

Infantino is rated second favourite behind Sheikh Salman Al Khalifa of Bahrain to replace the disgraced Sepp Blatter in the hottest seat in football, but it is usually unwise to bet against this polyglot Swiss lawyer of Italian extraction, a Michel Platini loyalist who is already the favoured son of European football.

Infantino is a formidable operator who has risen through European football administration like an exocet since leaving the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) at the University of Neuchatel.

While this process has only accelerated since his French mentor’s suspension for allegedly accepting a “disloyal payment” from Blatter (a charge both men say they will contest at the Court of Arbitration for Sport), the only thing which may stand in his way today is his affiliation with the big European clubs and wider wariness about UEFA being permitted to run the world game too.

None the less former Scottish Football Association president John McBeth feels he is the only hope if FIFA are serious about embracing this opportunity for change.

His crime was claiming Blatter was a “tricky customer” and being accused of racism after alleging that African and Caribbean associations were corrupt, even if history has subsequently validated many of his observations.

The Scotsman recalled one conversation he had with Infantino, who had recently replaced Scotland’s David Taylor as UEFA’s general secretary, on the subject shortly afterwards.

“There was a slight overlap there and when I was ditched by the English, Welsh and Scottish FAs for that matter, Infantino said to me ‘you should have kept your mouth shut until you got the job’,” said McBeth. “‘Then you could have talked’. I said to him ‘hang on, everybody knows what is going on here and nobody is talking’. But if it were left to me, Infantino is the man I would go for.

“He is a lawyer by trade and he always struck me as being very well organised,” added McBeth. “I had a lot of time for Michel and one thing he did do was surround himself with people who were good, solid individuals. I got on well with him."

“His only drawback I would think is that he may be seen as too close to the big European clubs. They might think ‘we don’t want a European running it’. But these are interesting times. We will see who gets it and see how everyone else reacts. I have often thought that Europe should have stood up to FIFA years ago and said ‘listen, until you get your house in order, and get your transparency sorted out, we are not taking part’. That would have been the end of the World Cup.”

As it happens, the Presidential election is only part of the day’s business in Zurich.

A winner will be declared when one candidate wins either two thirds of the available 207 votes in the first round, or a simple majority if a second round is required.

This is needed on the night as an ice hockey rink must be laid at midnight for a match at the same Hallenstadion venue the following day.

Also on the agenda are comprehensive reform proposals which require the disbanding of the 24-man “executive committee” and its replacement with a 36-member FIFA council, including a minimum of six women.

Term limits, possibly three terms of four years, will be agreed for top officials, along – crucially – with the disclosure of their salaries. This all requires 75 per cent approval to be passed.

“If they do that, it would be a huge step forward,” said McBeth. “UEFA was transparent, but FIFA wasn’t transparent at all.

“FIFA was looked at in tax terms in Switzerland like an amateur yodelling society, they paid taxes to nobody.

“I remember speaking to Blatter once upon a time and I said to him ‘what do you earn from FIFA?’” McBeth added. “He said, ‘no no under Swiss law, the only people who need to know are the chairman of the finance committee and the vice chairman.

“I came back to Glasgow to see who was who and the chairman was Julio Grondona of Argentina and the vice chairman was Jack Warner from Trinidad and Tobago.

“In many ways, I look back on it now and think somebody upstairs was looking after me,” said McBeth, “keeping me out of that altogether.”