Stewart Regan will sit down with Craig Levein today as the SFA attempt to draw up a foolproof plan to restore the fortunes of the national side.

Regan, the new chief executive of Scottish football’s governing body, has already familiarised himself with the Henry McLeish report aimed at re-establishing Scotland as a force in the game.

And one of his early tasks in the job, which was vacated by Gordon Smith in April, will be to access the funding and resources that will allow him to implement McLeish’s recommendations.

The 46-year-old Englishman has a strong business and sporting background, having worked with the Football League and Yorkshire County Cricket club.

But despite his credentials, Regan is well aware that his work will be cut out in attempting to win over fans who have become disillusioned with the state of the game and the exploits of the national team.

“I do understand Scottish football. I was involved with Carling and their dealings with the Old Firm. I appre-ciate I am not going to be accepted overnight,” he said.

Regan added: “I will sit down with Craig today and we’ll have a chat. Our remit is to bring success back to Scotland.”

Scotland have not qualified for a major international tournament since the World Cup in France in 1998.

With each passing competition it gets harder for the national side to progress through the qualifiers, because of their diminishing ranking and seeding.

However, Regan is determined to devise a strategy to revitalise our game and has called on supporters to stop harking back to the fabled good old days, an attitude he feels is damaging to progress.

“People want success and that means the national team winning, but also a set-up that seems to work,” he said.

“A lot of the feedback I’ve had and from what I have read in the McLeish report, people think that it is not working as well as it could.

“There are some cracks in the process and they need fixed. I don’t think it should be about the nationality or the background of the people involved. If the way it works brings success, then that is what people crave and that is what we need to focus on.

“We need to look forward. Maybe we, and I mean Scotland in this respect, spend too much time looking at how fantastic it was in the years gone by.

“I am not interested in what has gone on with Gordon Smith or what has gone on in the past. I’m interested in the future.”

Regan also feels that his previous dealings with SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster (both are former directors of the Football League in England) will assist in his aim of getting all the important parties to work together.

“What I suspect has happened up here is that there has been too much conflict between bodies and not enough focus on the common agenda,” he said.

“I am not coming in and saying that I am going to sort that out overnight but I think the fact I do have a relationship with Neil will help and I do think having some exper-ience of working in the English Football League will help.

“The SFA are responsible for leading the agenda and that is something we need other parties to buy into.

“It’s not just a Scottish FA issue, though, this is a national issue.

“Football is an institution up here. There is passion that you just don’t see in other sports and in other parts of the world.

“In order for that passion to be allowed to grow and thrive it has to start with grassroots football, kids’ football at school and that needs other parties to help deliver it.

“That requires funding, it requires coaching and it requires a focus on a healthy lifestyle.”

Peat: Smith was football man but now we mean business

SFA president George Peat welcomed new chief executive Stewart Regan into his position – then admitted the previous appointment of Gordon Smith “didn’t really work”.

Peat had declared he wanted a business person to run the organisation and was impressed by Regan’s record during 16 years in the brewing industry,

coupled with his roles with the Football League and Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Although Regan will be complemented by a yet-to-be-appointed performance director, his appointment represents a retreat from the step taken in 2007 when former Rangers and Brighton player Smith took charge.

Smith had experience of playing abroad, coaching and working for a firm of chartered accountants and as a football agent, plus extensive media work.

But Peat today said the experiment had not been successful.

“I was behind Gordon’s appointment,” he said. “I thought it would be a good idea to bring in a football man, as we say, because Gordon had worked with media, he had been a professional footballer and everything else, but it didn’t really work from the business point of view and that’s why I think this is a better idea.

“Stewart’s got a business background and that’s what we’re looking for. The SFA has a £30million turnover – it’s a business we’re running here.”

Peat added: “The idea of bringing in a football man was because the people who were in the SFA at the time, apart from Jim Fleeting and his department, weren’t football people.

“And we thought it would maybe assist to have one. But it didn’t really work.”