Glenn Gibbons: Rod Petrie's critics should direct their venom elsewhere

Football club directors do not appear on most lists of the most reviled professions but, if the trend over recent years is a reliable guide, they probably will join a group that includes politicians, lawyers, estate agents and journalists.

If anything, those who attempt to conduct the business of Scotland's national sport are the most wretched of all. They are the objects of vituperation by people who are, by and large, not only ignorant of the complexities and constraints of their work, but whose judgment is informed by a passion that sabotages rational thought. They are also frequently misled towards unsound conclusions by figureheads whose status lends them a credibility their own ignorance does not merit.

And so we have Paul Kane, the former Hibernian player, this week accusing the Easter Road club's chairman, Rod Petrie, of incompetence in the matter of appointing managers capable of restoring the team to past glories. Kane claimed that Petrie should consider his own position, as the man responsible for appointing a succession of failures.

It was rather a typical, ill-considered comment from Kane, himself a product of a profession not renowned for cerebral distinction.

The former player, like the overwhelming majority of fans, would have no idea of the difficulties of Petrie's work, the manner in which he executes it, or the unpublicised successes he has achieved in the course of the past 14 years. Nor will Kane and other critics have considered for a moment that Petrie could earn immeasurably more money from his field of expertise - he was a merchant banker and chartered accountant - but chooses to serve Hibs because he is as committed a supporter as will be found at any match. It should also be stressed that Petrie enjoys a reputation within the game as an uncompromising negotiator who has regularly obtained the most favourable deal for his club in the matter of selling and buying players.

These are strengths that Kane and others possibly are not entitled to know, but they should surely realise that, in the Old Firm-dominated, top-heavy Scottish Premier League, the odds against any board of directors outside Glasgow consistently appointing a winning manager would reach at least five figures.