DAVID LONGMUIR stepped away from Scottish football yesterday, leaving behind a legacy to the game which is contested terrain.

There was an inevitability about the departure of the former chief executive of the Scottish Football League after it emerged that Neil Doncaster would fulfil the top post at the Scottish Professional Football League, but it still seemed like the end of an era yesterday when the 48-year-old reached a compromise agreement on severance pay and brought the curtain down on his six-year involvement in football.

Longmuir, a former international-class bowls player before making his name with drinks firm Diageo, was unavailable for comment last night – confidentiality arrangements are thought to have been signed by all parties – but his actions in the job spoke louder than any words. It said it all for the occasional difficulties of his job description that, having largely fulfilled his brief to bring the 123-year-old organisation into the modern world, he would also preside over the final dismantling of the entire enterprise. The first chief executive in the league's history – he replaced outgoing secretary Peter Donald in a reshuffle in May 2007 – had also proved to be its last.

When it came, the nuts and bolts of his departure were relatively simple. The appointment of a new chief executive was the first item of business for the new remuneration and appointments committee – its members are chairman Ralph Topping, vice-chair Duncan Fraser of Aberdeen, Celtic's Eric Riley and Bill Darroch of Stenhousemuir – although Topping, who fulfilled the same role with the Scottish Premier League, was actually on leave when the two potential candidates were asked to present their vision at interview. Doncaster won the day – some might say unsurprisingly given the number of former SPL faces on the panel – then discussions between the committee, minus Doncaster, and Longmuir began on what happened next.

Although TUPE legislation means that he would have to be considered, if interested, for any lower position in the organisation, Longmuir is believed to have agreed a severance package numbering something in the region of six months to a year of his annual terms, and seems likely to return to the corporate world, perhaps in the sector where he made his name. It is ironic that the man who brought Bell's into Scottish football, and sealed a landmark deal with AG Barr, leaves with the nascent SPFL searching for a title sponsor, albeit it is thought that the involvement of the makers of Irn-Bru may outlast that of Longmuir.

As with all acquisitions and mergers, the process of rationalising will not end there. With the blessing of the SPFL board, Doncaster is now drawing up a new organisational structure, which will likely trim the combined total of 17 members of staff. A twin-track process, whereby applications for voluntary redundancy are sought and certain key personnel are identified to remain, will begin, with a view to the overhaul being completed in the next two or three weeks.

As of today, Longmuir is free to seek alternative employment and opinion will vary as to whether his curriculum vitae has been enhanced or degraded by his involvement in Scottish football. No doubt there will be some wags suggesting his next move might be to a seat in the Rangers boardroom but such talk does disservice to a largely progressive figure, who typically got it in the neck both when he tried to take the game forward and when he tried to exercise a note of caution.

If it took sleight of hand for him to emerge comparatively unscathed in comparison with Doncaster and Stewart Regan, his Scottish Football Association counterpart, amid the predictions of Armageddon and horse trading which accompanied the collapse of the Ibrox club in the summer of 2012 – he lobbied, like them, for Rangers to be included in the first division, only to pull back amid the strength of feeling from his rank and file – he was eventually perceived as being too close to the SPFL League One side 12 months later.

The man who, 12 months earlier, appeared a credible leader for the game was left attempting to vainly keep the peace between warring factions in his own organisation. Rebel first division clubs were critical during a meeting at New Douglas Park, while third division sides eventually felt they were effectively being encouraged to vote themselves out of existence. Perhaps it was that eventual resistance to change, at least on the terms that were being offered, that ultimately did for him in the end: if you have reservations about a merger in the first place, perhaps it is harder to sell yourself as the man to take the merged operation forward.

In time, Scottish football may look fondly upon his term. "When he came in, the SFL was outdated, not fit for purpose," one source said yesterday. "But if this new organisation hadn't arisen, he had dragged us to where we need to be."

But for now it is all too raw. The new organisation did arise. Longmuir facilitated its arrival, only to be thanked with a handshake and a fresh start elsewhere. Maybe last night, he consoled himself about the ironies of it all with a drop of his cherished malt whisky.