Resilient Regan adds firefighting to his sporting cv

Chief football writer

Thursday 7 June 2012

STEWART Regan's job has made his life a whole lot more interesting and his conversation – albeit briefly – far more tedious.

Stewart Regan addresses the media at Hampden Park yesterday. Picture: SNS

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Michael Grant

The SFA chief executive could see the eyes of his audience of reporters momentarily glaze over as he referred to Articles of Association 3 (b), 3 (c) and, as if anyone could forget it, 62.2 (m) during a media briefing at Hampden yesterday. It was an effortless recollection of rules, clauses and sub-clauses the likes of which had not been heard since the late Jim Farry was in his pomp. "Not that I've been looking at them," said Regan, as if acknowledging that any more of that and people might have drifted away to watch paint dry.

Regan has not been in the job two years yet but at times he must have felt that every single day has been turbulent enough to involve at least one call for him to resign or be sacked. A referees' strike, "Dougiegate", Hugh Dallas being dismissed over an offensive email, one Old Firm manager being subjected to an assault and a parcel bomb campaign and now the other side of the divide in a financial, legal and administrative tailspin in which Regan and the SFA are inextricably embroiled. Some or all of these and countless other things besides have been – at least according to some of his mailbag and email inbox – his fault."I think Scottish football fans are more passionate than any fans I've seen anywhere in the world," said the man who was previously chief executive of Yorkshire Cricket Club, which must seem as a restful as a monastery to him now. "However, I haven't seen anything like the Old Firm rivalry and how it takes on a very different perspective when you roll religion and politics into one pot. That unfortunately leads to a minority that actually choose to use any attempt they can to undermine you, to create conspiracy theories to try to deflect from the good work that is going on. "It's very sad for the world of football but it's the world that we live in, and we deal with it. I'm big enough and grown up enough to say it's not going to get in the way of doing what's right and I will continue to do what's right for Scottish football no matter how people try to derail me."Of course I get frustrated when I get the police giving me advice on how to behave in Scotland, given the culture we operate in, and I get frustrated when people send me inappropriate emails and messages. But I've learned to live with that and put it down to experience. I know some of you get the same abuse so that kind of makes it a bit easier."Regan regards himself as resilient, the type of guy who thrives on adversity. There were challenges in working for the Football League when ITV Digital collapsed, he said, and then more, for various reasons, trying to deal with the internal politics at Headingley. But nothing like Hampden. "Anyone would have probably laughed at you if you'd have said that's what you were facing. I could never have envisaged in my wildest dreams just what faced me and our board in trying to do what we've done in the last 12 to 18 months. But I would say that I personally have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this job. I love it, I really do mean that. I've always been involved in jobs which needed resilience or a degree of tenacity. If you knock me down I will keep coming back."What he wanted to discuss after yesterday's SFA annual meeting was how far the governing body had come since a major internal restructuring. He said 95% of the recommendations made by Henry McLeish had been completed or were under way. The SFA's annual turnover was up £4.5m, or 16%, to £32.3m. Strategy and funding were "in place". The board structure had been changed, a new judicial system implemented, the women's game was flourishing. "We have made huge, huge progress, but while that's been going on there have been just an unbelievable number of fires to put out. But we've put them out. I think we've dealt with them, and dealt with them swiftly, professionally and transparently and I don't think anyone can criticise the work we've done."The latest blaze, in his view, was Rangers going to the Court of Session. "Rangers choosing to go to a civil court is overshadowing things and taking away from the decisions that we've made. I think we made our feelings on that [any club going to court] very clear to the members this morning. In my closing remarks to the members I stated that it was very disappointing to see football's dirty washing hung out in a civil court. I think to put the SFA in a position where we are having to enter into dialogue with the world governing body [FIFA] is not a particularly positive place for Scottish football to be. Fortunately FIFA are very happy with the way the Scottish FA have conducted the matter and will not be taking any action. But we have made it very clear to members that if they wish to remain members of the Scottish FA then they must abide by our rules."One consequence of Craig Whyte's disastrous Rangers ownership was a new SFA rule passed unanimously yesterday. When a club changes hands from now on, the outgoing board will be required to sign a document confirming that due diligence was done on the new owner. "In view of what has happened here we have decided it would be helpful if we had greatest disclosure up front as to who is going to be involved in the football club. If anyone on the new board is subsequently deemed not to be a fit and proper person, the club will face sanctions for lack of due diligence. We're making substantial progress yet one issue dominates Scottish football and is reflected across the world," said Regan. "And unfortunately it doesn't paint the game in as positive a light as it should be."

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Resilient Regan adds firefighting to his sporting cv

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