Football’s never been so rich but for the majority who play at the bottom it’s never seemed poorer

YOU may have noticed that we’ve had a bit of snow and ice this week.

Nothing new in that as we don’t exactly live on the Equator.

Thankfully, due to technological advances the consequences aren’t as dire for fans as they used to be when white blankets would often wipe out a weekend’s fixtures.

For those who play the game at the bottom, though, despite this being the first freeze of winter, fixture wipeouts are the norm with some teams claiming to have played only a couple of games since November.

Put simply, today’s amateur football pitches are a national disgrace, shaming a government obsessed with cuts and football authorities obsessed with keeping as much of their new-found wealth to themselves. Cancer Research UK warned this week that today’s youngsters are set to be the most obese generation since records began.

Might one of the reasons be that kids outside the public-school sector have fewer and fewer places to play cheap, competitive football since councils have had hundreds of millions axed from their budgets over the past austerity decade and noone has stepped in to fill the funding gap.

Football has never been wealthier in this country but for the overwhelming majority who play it at the bottom it’s never seemed poorer.

The youth and amateur game is desperate for more 3G and 4G pitches so they can be used in all weathers, a vast upgrade of the drainage systems on grass pitches and investment in new changing facilities.

The FA gives sporadic announcements about pumping fresh funding in, but it’s mostly topping up cash that’s already been pledged. Four years ago FA chairman Greg Dyke promised there would be more than 1,000 allweather pitches built by 2020.

Two years off, where are they? In comparison Germany has almost 4,000. Spot the link with international success?

The problem is far too big for the FA alone, which is why a petition has been launched by a group called Save Grass Roots Football calling on the government “to impose a five per cent levy on the Premier League’s existing £8.3billion combined revenue from UK and international TV deals to be reinvested back into

The neglect of grass roots football is shameful

grassroots football”. The Premier League argues it hands more to lower leagues and charities than any other football organisation on earth.

Which is true. But no other football organisation gets remotely close to their earning power. Last week’s annual report showed it has £1.6bn in cash reserves and total assets of £2.57bn.

Donating the interest on those reserves alone would double if not treble the sum it now gives to the grassroots game below non-league level.

Then there are the Premier League clubs who spent £1.4bn on transfers last summer, most of it leaving English football for foreign clubs and agents.

Don’t they have a responsibility, indeed isn’t it in their interests, to ensure the kids in their area have decent pitches that are playable most weekends? Where is the PFA,

which has £50m in investments and can afford to pay its chairman Gordon Taylor £2.3m a year?

The petition has attracted more than 30,000 signatures but needs 100,000 by March 13 to stand a chance of being discussed in the Commons.

I’d urge you to sign it (petition.parliament.uk/

petitions/200094) if only to get this subject debated more widely.

The neglect of grassroots football, at a time when the game has never had so much money or been so popular, is shameful.

That neglect is not solely down to the Premier League or today’s politicians but they have the power to put things right if they so choose.

The time has come for the country – which invented the game and spread it around the world – to get its priorities right.