IT was Napoleon who once asked his generals not were they competent but were they lucky?

It is difficult to underestimate just how important luck can be in life, while lack of luck is also a serious indisposition. I am so unlucky I bet on Lewis Hamilton to win BBC Sports Personality of the Year and two days later he was all over the Paradise Papers for tax avoidance...

Luck is usually about being in the right place at the right time and that’s why I know the identity of the luckiest man in Scottish sport – Stuart Regan, the chief executive of the Scottish Football Association.

So far Regan has led such a charmed existence in the job you would think he must have been a sorcerer in a past life. Look at all the trouble that has happened in his time in charge since 2010 – the referees’ strike, the Rangers ‘armageddon’ (his word) in 2012 and subsequent controversy over the EBT tax avoidance issue which, whether they like it or not, has brought the SFA into disrepute.

The SFA was cleared of any blame for last year’s Scottish Cup Final post-match riot – for that is what it was – but then when you pick and pay the person to make the inquiry it is hardly going to be seen as independent, is it? More about independent scrutiny later…

Regan is now on his third director of performance, and most pertinently for the ordinary football fan, the Scotland national side has failed yet again to qualify for a major finals.

He is lucky, because he is in charge at a time when there is no one of the calibre of former Celtic owner Fergus McCann to challenge his stewardship of the governing body of the sport in Scotland.

The proof that Regan should consider whether or not he should stay in the job has come with the latest farrago of nonsense over whether or not Scotland should continue to play its matches at Hampden Park.

The publicity last week over the decision of the SFA board to discuss not renewing their lease at Hampden struck me right away as just one big diversionary tactic to take people’s minds off the fact that our national side has yet again failed to qualify for a major finals.

Here’s one reason Regan might go – this lease story first surfaced in January, 2015, and here we are in November, 2017, with no deal done. That’s just an unacceptable delay.

No one, apart from managers, has ever fallen on their sword for the long run of failure to make the Euro or World Cup finals. And since the national team is a major part of the reason why the SFA exists, there really should be people within the game asking why the chief executive is still in his job.

That failure cannot be laid at Regan’s feet alone as he has only been in the job since 2011, and to be fair to him there are some things which he has done well. He did manage to get several key sponsorship deals and his promotion of a different approach to bringing on young players is a credit to him, but there is still the nagging problem that Scotland is under-achieving on the pitch.

I do not expect for one second any of the elected officials within the SFA to put their head above the parapet and say it is time for change. For one thing, who would get to replace them? No sane person would want this job at this time and until there’s a really suitable candidate then Regan is probably bullet-proof.

Except, that is, for this Hampden fiasco which could well be the undoing of Regan. For hard-pressed Scottish clubs in every league are aghast at the thought of internationals being played at Ibrox, Celtic Park and, heaven forfend, Murrayfield.

The argument I have heard from more than a few people is why should the two richest clubs in the country be given more money to host internationals? For unless Celtic and Rangers have agreed to waive all rentals – fat chance – they will become even richer.

As for football money being given to the Scottish Rugby Union, well even lovers of the oval ball game cannot see any sense in such a move. I can also confirm from experience that people on the West side of Edinburgh are totally fed up with the idea before it has even started.

The recent Scottish Football Supporters Association survey showed that a large percentage – 93 per cent in fact – wanted some independent oversight of the game in Scotland.

That independent scrutiny might now happen. For in pimping Scotland’s internationals to Murrayfield, Parkhead and Ibrox, Regan has caused all sorts of questions to be asked, and some series inquiries are on the way, including, I am told, questions in Parliament.

For a vast amount of public money was poured into the refurbishment of Hampden in the 1990s, including £30 million of Lottery cash. Does that have to be paid back if Hampden ceases to be the National Stadium? .

Will the SFA and SPFL have to move out of Hampden? Has anybody asked Queen’s Park what they think? What about the Hampden Sports Clinic? Or the Scottish Football Museum?

Is it just internationals or are cup semis and finals also up for touting? That would appear to be a logical conclusion if the lease is up.

What Regan is trying to do is to negotiate a better deal for the SFA in the next lease period by threatening to take his toys elsewhere. It’s a bluff and it’s time somebody called it.