SO, HOW DID HE GET TO EARN £2.3m A YEAR?

GorDon TAylor was once considered such a rising star that the Professional footballers’ Association feared losing him. It was november 1992, a senior administrator’s job had come up at the football Association which offered a bigger salary than the union was paying him, and Taylor applied.

He’d just negotiated the PfA a big cut of the first Premier league TV deal at the time. ‘We were very, very worried he might go,’ said a former senior PfA official.

The threat of departure led to Taylor receiving a new contract and 25 per cent pay increase to match the fA figure — the first significant step towards his present £2.3million salary. But the circumstances behind that rise are controversial.

The management committee — the PfA ‘board’ made up of players from each of the four divisions — gathered expecting to discuss Taylor’s new deal, having instructed the union’s then chairman Brian Marwood to negotiate with him.

Two sources have told Sportsmail that the agreement struck with Taylor was presented to them as a fait accompli, with the contract already signed. .

one source describes a heated debate ensuing with Taylor, who threw the contract on to the table and told the committee to pick it up and look at it and if they didn’t like it, he e would walk away.

Another source says Marth Marwood did exactly what the management committee had asked, rang around members and found a majority in favour of paying what it took to keep Taylor. The pay rise was approved and waved through at the union’s AGM the following day.

The episode underlines the power Taylor wielded even then over what, at times, was a fairly shambolic management committee.

Its meetings, held every six weeks or so, would take place on a sunday morning at the PfA’s Manchester offices.

‘A lot of them would have played the day before,’ said the source. ‘so it would be difficult getting the committee to turn up. you’d maybe have six instead of the full 10. Anyone in london would fly back south so they’d have to leave early.’

The PfA increased the membership of the management committee just to ensure that a credible number were present.

There was also an opportunity to challenge Taylor’s pay every year at the PfA AGM. yet at times a mere 50 players attended.

The union’s own salaried staff still outnumber them.

‘It tends to be lower-end players who turn up,’ said one source. ‘They get travel expenses. But some of them are half asleep as the meeting drags on and on, through details of policy and education courses.’

not every Taylor decision went his own way. His attempts to put Marwood in overall charge of the union’s commercial operation was rejected by the management committee. Marwood left soon afterwards to work for nike, from where he joined Manchester City in 2009.

But Taylor has seized control of the organisation — making it his business to be across every decision of even modest significance. Those arriving for management committee meetings receive 25-page documents detailing work done and decisions outstanding. Taylor takes on the key decisions. sion There is very little for them to do or decide. That attention to d detail has had its benefits. even those who have crossed Taylor describe him as a good a administrator. since the appointment m of Darren Wilson, ano another former player, as financ financial controller in 2002, th there h has been more accounting for where PfA cash is moving.

But those who challenge Taylor and his allies have suffered the consequences.

In-house lawyer Jo Armstrong was sacked for a ‘ breach of trust’ after not informing Taylor about her successful phone- hacking claim, understood to be worth around £80,000, against the News of

the World. Taylor himself received a £700,000 pay-off for being hacked.

The scrutiny of Taylor’s salary has passed from the management committee to the business advisory committee of the PfA’s charitable trust, which was established in 2013.

As Sportsmail revealed this week, that committee is chaired by Gareth Griffiths, a former footballer, PfA board member and cofounder of wealth management company, Prosport Wealth. The PfA’s latest financial results reveal that the PfA paid Prosport £16,355 in fees in the last financial year.