Independent scrutiny a key part of SFA's radical disciplinary reform

SFA chief executive Stewart Regan believes the Association's AGM next week could represent "a major watershed" in the game's governance.

New proposals designed to open regulatory processes to the wider public will feature in a "huge programme" of reforms which need 75 per cent backing from 93 member clubs a week on Tuesday.

In the plans, individuals from outside the football fraternity will sit in judgment on disciplinary matters. A judicial panel is to replace the four committee structures that Regan has accepted were "not fit for purpose", and which last season led the SFA's legal and moral authority to be undermined by constant challenges.

The disciplinary, appeals, general purposes and emergency committees will be collapsed into one, largely autonomous, body that will be three-persons strong. Two of the panel members will be drawn from the various football associations. The third will be independent, with no affiliations to the game and have come through a vetting process after putting themselves forward.

"What we will do is create a 'person spec' for the type of individual we want," the SFA chief executive said. "We will look for relevant parties from the legal or financial world, people who understand governance, perhaps through sitting on boards in the private or public sector as chief executives. It will be about finding people who understand processes rather than finding amateur footballers who are experts on the intricacies of the game's laws. We will see nominations and then have these scrutinised by a third-party agency before we conduct interviews. The aim is to have a long list of these people we can call upon."

And call upon quickly. The aim is to have disciplinary cases heard within a matter of days. There will be a Monday-morning review of any disciplinary matters that have come to light over the weekend matches, either in referees' reports or via video evidence carried out by a compliance officer, effectively assuming the role of prosecutor, who will be someone with five years' legal experience and sound football knowledge. The panel will then by pulled together and feature no persons with any conflict of interest or even from the same league tier as those being judged. If any punishment is accepted, sanctions would be in place for the following weekend. If a ruling was challenged through appeal, the hope is that hearing could be convened a couple of days later.

"We want a new judicial standard wherein we have transparency and a decision-making process that is expedient," Regan said. "We have looked at best practice elsewhere in terms of disciplinary matters and taken elements from the Football League in England, rugby's Heineken Cup and the impressive model that exists in the Scottish Rugby Union. Ours is a hybrid combining the best parts while retaining some of our own."There has been an acceptance there were serious flaws in our disciplinary measures and they were not fit for purpose, being antiquated procedures that could not be applied to a modern world where huge sums of money rest on outcomes. Going the length and breadth of the country talking to clubs at all levels, I think football people recognise the need for change and that Henry McLeish's review, which formed the basis for our proposals, set out a compelling case to do what we will be putting before the vote next week."