Can we expect a sleepwalking SFA to deliver field of dreams?

OF all the words spoken by Rod Petrie in his latest reincarnation as the goodest of all-round good eggs yesterday, nine stood out: We are not sitting here with a grand plan. Look, it is no bad thing the new SFA president has started playing nice after 20 years skulking around football’s corridors of power in the way a poltergeist might haunt your scullery. Cold, grey, silent, draining the overexuberance out of the place, moving the furniture around out of sight.

As the Hibs fans who once campaigned so vigorously to oust him from Easter Road would attest, however, not even an exorcism would be enough to get Petrie out the door.

Thanks to the bowling club system that still prevails at the national association, we’re all stuck with him now. For good or bad.

And for all his promises about taking a more active role than his predecessors, what he delivered in his state of the nation address before Scotland’s 2-1 win in Cyprus is not enough.

There have been plenty of big words from this current regime at the SFA. Sadly, big actions on important matters seem quite some way away.

We are 18 months on from Ian Maxwell moving from board member to chief executive in a move large swathes of the public have yet to be convinced was anything more than pure politicking.

Hampden Park has been bought thanks to donations from Lord Willie Haughey and Sir Tom Hunter. Had they not ponied up, the SFA would, inexplicably, be getting ready to rent Murrayfield from Scottish Rugby when there exists an entire country of perfectly good football grounds.

Despite no good explanation for boxing themselves into that corner, we’re here now — trying to work out what to do with a national stadium that has hoovered up millions of pounds yet is not up to par.

Presumably, it is now going to hoover up further millions that could be used elsewhere in the game — with a Home Nations’ bid for World Cup 2030 clearly being viewed as the catalyst that can fashion a solution to its problems.

That’s why it comes as a disappointment, to say the least, that Petrie is knocking around Larnaca admitting there is no grand plan for reconstruction or raising cash. You are the figurehead of the national association. You need to have a plan to get the game and its infrastructure up to scratch. If you don’t, what chance is there?

Maxwell held a press conference over a year ago after Hampden’s sale and made noises about studying the rebuild of Stuttgart’s MercedesBenz Arena. There has been nothing meaningful since.

Much the same as going off to cost up VAR with fellow SFA board member Neil Doncaster.

It goes on and on at the SFA. Lots of chat. Lack of substance. Maxwell said the women’s team reaching the summer’s World Cup would be ‘transformational’. Glasgow City just won the league on a muckheap tagged onto a sports centre and the big pow-wow over how best to spend the £400,000 of FIFA prize money guaranteed over 12 months ago hasn’t even started.

The men’s national team remains beaten, bruised and unloved ahead of these Euro play-offs, our most important games in a generation.

Alex McLeish’s reign was damaged by players staying away to ‘manage injuries’ and being tolerated. Now, Steve Clarke is having to cope with more withdrawals than a failing bank with a run on it. Petrie insists he will support the Scotland boss should he wage war on clubs with FIFA’s five-day rule. Good. Back those sentiments up with actions, then.

When you’ve developed a spine over that issue, start putting some meat on the bones of all this other vapid warbling so high on principles yet low on particulars.

Finding your voice is one thing, Roderick. If you really want to change perceptions, it is finding and delivering answers that matter.