I want clubs to join a noble inside job
DAVID DEIN, the former vice-chairman of Arsenal, has launched an ambitious new proposal which aims to affiliate prisons with Premier League clubs.
The Twinning Project, Dein’s brainchild, intends to tackle the major problem of reoffending, with 64 per cent of adults committing another crime within 12 months of their release.
Dein, 75, who spent four decades at the top of the game with Arsenal, the FA and FIFA, believes his initiative will save the taxpayer £700,000 if just 20 offenders are rehabilitated.
“This project will work,” said Dein, launching it at Wembley yesterday. “Time will tell whether it is my greatest contribution to football.
“Forming the Premier League and getting involved with Arsene Wenger, the Invincibles, and winning 18 trophies was major. Making sure football changed for the better after Hillsborough was very important, too, but this is a new challenge and I am determined, while there is breath in my body, to make sure it gets through and that it will be a success.”
His proposal, which has the backing of the FA and the Premier League as well as the EFL, wants staff from the 92 Football League clubs to join forces with their local prisons by delivering coaching and employability-based qualifications.
Dein suggests that Arsenal, for example, could team up with Pentonville Prison, and Manchester United with HMP Preston.
Two coaches, or staff from a club, would then be required for a two-day, 12-week course with 16 offenders. Four courses would be run annually.
West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady became the first leading Premier League voice to give her support to the project, while it LIONEL MESSI is back in training for Barcelona after missing the last two games because of a broken bone in his arm. Messi, below, suffered the injury on October 20 in their 4-2 win against Sevilla and it was expected to keep the Argentina forward on the sidelines for several weeks. But the 31-year-old joined his team-mates in a photo tweeted by the club with the words ‘Leo Messi returns to training’. is understood that all 20 top-flight sides are interested in getting involved. The proposal will be rolled out to 20 prisons next month. Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who served time in prison for a motoring offence, and ex-Gunners manager Wenger were both on hand to lend their support to Dein, who has spoken to offenders in 106 prisons up and down the country.
Brady said: “My grandmother taught me that you must never look down on people unless you are helping them up, and I believe this project really goes to the heart of that sentiment.
“West Ham believe that people deserve a second chance, and we will certainly be one of the clubs signing up to this project.” BBC Match of the Day pundit Wright, 54, said: “We are not going to say it will save everybody that goes into the prison system, but there are people in there who are just waiting for an opportunity to try to change. It is something that can work.” FIFA president Gianni Infantino wants the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams to happen as early as 2022 in Qatar, saying it is both “possible” and “feasible”.
FIFA plan for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico to include 48 teams but, speaking at the Asian Football Confederation’s annual congress in Kuala Lumpur, Infantino said discussions had taken place with organisers in Qatar about whether that timetable could be brought forward.
“It will happen in 2026. Will it happen in 2022? You know me. It is possible. It is feasible. Why not?”