IT was not very long ago that I wrote that the Scottish Football Association chief executive was the luckiest man in Scottish sport, because Stewart Regan is in charge “at a time when there is no one of the calibre of former Celtic chief Fergus McCann to challenge his stewardship of the governing body of the sport in Scotland,” to repeat my exact words.

I predicted that the current fiasco over whether the SFA and Scotland’s main international games plus the two major domestic cup finals leave Hampden might be the undoing of Regan, and that issue has still to be resolved. It might yet be so.

Luck is a great quality in a general, as Napoleon knew, but yesterday was the day when Stewart Regan’s luck ran out.

When Michael O’Neill turned down the offer of the Scotland managership, the SFA became the laughing stock of football, and as any politician or boardroom executive would tell you, you can survive anything but being the butt of people’s jokes. You can bet that certain disillusioned ‘butts’ in the SFA are even now plotting how to get rid of Regan.

Nevertheless in the short term I expect the SFA to circle the wagons and try to bat off all criticism of this embarrassment. I presume that even now some PR consultant somewhere is being paid plenty dosh to draw up a protectionist strategy for Regan and the SFA high heid yins who have orchestrated this farce. Dinna bother calling me, I’m sticking to my guns that this recruitment process has been a disgrace, and only a free SFA luxury ticket to watch Scotland win the World Cup final will make me change my mind – what do you mean, we didn’t qualify?

Make no mistake, what happened with O’Neill was farcical, and the Scotland fans are furious – in one of those instant online polls run by another daily newspaper, the voting for him to resign was running at 91 per cent yes and nine per cent no.

Let’s look at some facts allied with some permissible speculation. Here’s what the SFA’s self-serving statement, which at least had an element of dignity, had to say. My speculation is in brackets…

“The Board of the Scottish FA (presumably on the advice of the chief exec) appointed a sub-committee to oversee the recruitment process (presumably drawn up with the advice of the chief exec), compile a list of suitable candidates (presumably with the input of the chief exec) and ultimately make a recommendation (presumably handed back to the chief exec).

“As part of that process, and in recognition of his work in taking Northern Ireland to UEFA Euro 2016, Michael O’Neill was identified as an obvious candidate for consideration (that’s probably the greatest single truth of the whole nonsense, as O’Neill was the most obvious candidate).

“To that end, we requested permission to speak to Michael from the Irish Football Association, which was accepted. Michael and his advisers met our delegation in Edinburgh on Thursday and discussed all aspects of the role during a three-hour meeting (presumably with the SFA chief exec in attendance and advising if not leading the delegation).” That SFA delegation, for whatever reason, failed to persuade O’Neill his future was as manager of Scotland. For that failure alone, heads should roll (but presumably not that of the Teflon-coated chief exec).

“We now continue our recruitment process from the candidate list established by the selection committee, with a view to giving the new national coach ample time to prepare the squad for the UEFA Nations League.”

The last para is most instructive. All along there was a list of candidates, it appears. I’m sorry, but the whole point was that O’Neill was singled out weeks ago, and news leaked like a colander with very big holes that the manager of Northern Ireland was the wanted man.

The fix should have gone in then. Regan and chums should have made sure that if they approached O’Neill then he would accept the job. But Reagan’s man management is questionable.

His statement in November that SFA performance director Malky Mackay was not in the running for the managerial job presumably means that Malky is not on the list of candidates at all, and Malky himself said at the time that he didn’t know that fate had befallen him. It would at least have been good chief management to let one of your top employees know beforehand that he was not being considered…

Regan and the board went with their policy of pursuing O’Neill, and with his current employers boosting his salary and saying how much they wanted to keep him, the SFA was always going to struggle to prise him out of a job at which he has been so very good. On current FIFA rankings he would also have been taking charge of an inferior team. Hardly a career advancement, then.

Plenty of people told the SFA they would have to both break the bank and offer O’Neill a long contract, and presumably they did that.

Or maybe O’Neill made his mind up after he watched the Hearts v Hibs Scottish Cup derby match at the weekend and saw two of our better teams produce a match of very little quality, with only Christophe Berra of the Scotland players on show doing his reputation any good.

In the end, we don’t know why O’Neill turned down the job. What we do now know is that whoever gets the job will be the second choice candidate. Or third, or fourth, or…however low down the pecking order the new man is, he will always know his employers wanted someone else, someone they thought was better. What an inspiring start to the job that will be…