FA’s six-minute foul-up

THE FA have long prided themselves on their Cup final set-piece working like clockwork. Yet such was the shambolic build-up to Saturday’s game, the match kicked off six minutes late.

The blunders included too busy a programme, too elaborate a stage for rapper Tinie Tempah, flags not unfurling, far too much furniture on the pitch and the national anthem singer Karen Harding missing her cue due to transmission problems.

And it also didn’t help having a new operations team trying too hard to impress Emirates in the first year of their sponsorship, while the FA lost their outstanding senior events manager Helen Nicolaou during the last management restructuring. She never started a Wembley match late on her watch, according to colleagues.

The FA protocol committee should also concentrate on finding out what went wrong rather than worrying about the lunch menu.

Even the National Football Museum felt it worth tweeting: ‘ Abide with Me is an FA Cup final tradition dating back to 1927. Tinie Tempah is not.’

ENGLAND assistant coach Gary Neville has kept remarkably quiet on all broadcasting outlets since being sacked as Valencia coach. Almost his first contentious statement since his return from Spain has been about politics rather than football, saying he opposes Labour heavyweight Andy Burnham standing for mayor of Greater Manchester. Neville described the move as ‘opportunistic’ and added: ‘He’s better off in Westminster.’ Burnham insisted yesterday that he could ‘make a difference’ in Manchester.