Untouchable Taylor set to win new deal

THE Premier League are set to bankroll the Professional Footballers Association for another three years despite the concern over the way chief executive Gordon Taylor remains in total control of the organisation.

Taylor, 73, who earned £2.3million in the last financial year and has been called the highestpaid trade union official in the world, has remained unchallenged as head of the PFA for 37 years after surrounding himself with ultra-loyal staff.

This helped him survive running up gambling debts of over £100,000 in 2013, having said the PFA had ‘zero tolerance’ towards gambling.

Taylor’s membership contains some of the richest footballers in the world and could easily be self-funding, yet it relies on being paid £27m a year from the Premier League’s TV rights pot.

And the Premier League would rather continue with the status quo and avoid any great fuss with Taylor, who threatened strike action by players in 2001 before agreeing a long-term formula for payments.

The Premier League keep a close eye on how £25m of their money is spent each year, mainly on youth development, although that still leaves £2m for the PFA to spend as they please.

It is understood that another PFA agreement, which must be in place by next August and the start of the next three-year cycle, could be signed before Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore leaves in December. THERE is growing concern within the ECB that the troubled Hundred competition is going to devour so much of the marketing budget that there will not be enough left to properly promote Test cricket and other competitions.

And a strong sign that Test cricket in England needs attention paid to it was the poor attendance on the first day of the Edgbaston Test when, ironically, numerous posters around the ground were publicising the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

was very noticeable, even on the edited 10-minute version of the video of 70 England players paying tribute to team-mate Alastair Cook, how many spoke with a South African accent.

looks like Alastair Cook has had the last word via BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew (right) in his battle with broadcaster Piers Morgan, who was chief supporter of Kevin Pietersen as well as being mightily critical of Cook when he was England captain. Morgan acknowledged Cook’s storied century-ending career by tweeting: ‘We’ve had our differences but it would be churlish not to acknowledge your enormous contribution to English cricket.’ Agnew, who was partying at the England hotel with Cook after his fairytale final Test innings responded: ‘So funny knowing Cook couldn’t give a flying f***.’