LEADING QUESTION
Maxwell: I’ve been a leader all my career, I’ve led teams, coached teams and I’ve just finished leading a club.. but when I got SFA job everyone had doubts ...‘Congratulations?’ they all said to me
PERCEPTION. It should be the first and last word on Ian Maxwell’s mission statement at Hampden.
Changing the perception of the SFA as some fusty, cobwebbed organisation governed by a bowling club mentality.
A bloated relic from a bygone age, wide open to corruption. The last bastion of the blazers and a gateway to a world of gin and tonics and junkets.
While, at the same time, the man who has been appointed as its new chief executive must also attempt to crush the notion that he has been shoe-horned into the job before he is ready for it.
A placeman who was handpicked for the role by the likes of Peter Lawwell. A man who cannot possibly be trusted to look after the whole of the Scottish game’s best interests when he couldn’t even keep Partick Thistle in the Premiership.
It’s day two in the new office on the sixth floor. Maxwell only left his position at Firhill on Sunday night after suffering the excruciating pain of a play-off defeat against little Livingston.
Excruciating not only for his old club but also on a personal level, given the timing of his journey across the city to the biggest seat in the Scottish game.
It is to be hoped that Maxwell’s luck will improve considerably now that he has removed Stewart Regan’s name plate from the door. This is no role for the hapless.
But yesterday the 43-year-old began the process of reaching out to Scotland’s disenfranchised football fans and promising to make a difference on their behalf.
It must be said, he spoke impressively and passionately about the task in hand. Most of all, he displayed a common touch that’s been missing from the SFA’s chain of command for so long that it’s probably been given a blazer of its own by now. Yes, Maxwell talked a good game on his official unveiling. And yet the hard work – and the overhauling of all those perceptions – starts now. With Thistle now preparing for life in the second tier without him, he knows his timing could hardly have been worse. He said: “Everybody knew I was starting this job on the Monday and the play-off game was on the Sunday.
“If it went one way it was the perfect day to leave, and if it went the other way then it was the worst day to leave. Unfortunately, it was the worst day.
“It was a horrible way to leave. Everybody was devastated. But it’s also the only real low point we’ve had in the time that I’ve been there.
“We managed to get promoted five years ago and had stayed in the division.
“The good thing is I’m leaving the club in a good place structurally so I can’t see there being wholesale changes.
“It’s not like they had to go in on Monday morning to make loads of people redundant.
“But, yes, I get that my own reputation will have taken a hit. If you are involved in football, if you’re managing director at that level, then performance on the park is a big part of it.
“You have to take that responsibility and say ‘I don’t have any regrets’. We made decisions we made for the right reasons at those times. If I had to do it again, I would make them all again.”
There’s a bullish, defiant streak in there that will serve him well in his new gig. But there’s also a sense of honesty and realism that comes from a career in football’s front line.
If nothing else, after working his way from the dressing room into the boardroom, Maxwell understands our game inside out, which is a great deal more than can be said of the last guy.
He says: “I think it’s massively important. I feel I’ve got a unique understanding of football — I’ve played, coached, been an assistant manager, run a club, been on boards both at the SFA and SPFL.
“I’ve got a really unique understanding of Scottish football right across the board and at all levels. My experience is going to be really important.
“I’m a leader. I’ve led teams from playing in them, coaching them and then recently leading a club. I engage and communicate really well. That’s a massive part of this job.”
And yet he’ll have quite a lot of explaining to do over his first few weeks in the job.
First, he must oversee the latest prickly feud with Rangers over the “Wee Tax Case” – a historic licensing row that stretches back to the days of Craig Whyte but which has also been championed by Celtic supporters.
However this latest dispute pans out, Maxwell will be in the firing line of one side or another. Very possibly both.
Then there’s the ongoing debate about Hampden and a possible relocation to Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby. Given the entrenched positions on both sides he can’t possibly come out of that unscathed either.
In fact, on day two, the problems are already piling up before him.
And then there’s the much discussed accusation that he only landed this job as part of a carve up which allowed president Alan McRae and VP Rod Petrie to name Alex McLeish as Scotland’s manager.
Asked yesterday if that was indeed how he was horse-traded into the job Maxwell said: “Absolutely not.
“I was on the appointment committee for Alex and that was never mentioned at any point. So I don’t know where that’s come from.”
Yes, he’s got his work cut out in the quest to change perceptions. That he is so eager and willing to confront it head-on is at least an encouraging sign.
He added: “I must have shaken a thousand hands over the past week and everyone says, ‘Congratulations?’ with a question mark on the end.
“But these jobs don’t come up often. When the opportunity arises you need to go and grasp it.
“It is a clean slate, it’s a fresh start. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could change those perceptions. It’s as simple as that.”
It was a horrible way to leave... I get that my reputation will have taken a hit IAN MAXWELL