Gamble to sell family silver didn’t pay off

Addressing the room at his leaving do, richard scudamore could not resist one final joke at the Football Association’s expense.

He gave the number of chairmen and chief executives the governing body had burned through in his time at the Premier League. it was the size of a football team, plus a full substitutes’ bench. Turns out he underestimated. scudamore still isn’t quite out of the door at gloucester Place and the FA are once again in the market for a CeO. Martin glenn has gone, a victim of the doomed attempt to sell Wembley. There were all sorts of spins and twists being put on his departure yesterday, but that is the bottom line.

it was his big idea, his big gamble, and it didn’t pay off. in the wake of its abandonment, had the famously unwieldy FA board entered into the type of confidence vote that Theresa May survived this week, it is unlikely glenn would have had anything like her majority.

Wembley left him wounded and probably made up his mind about the future, too. The FA is a notoriously hard body to change and glenn would not be the first executive to be exhausted by trying.

Yet in an organisation that goes through industry leaders the way a struggling League One club goes through managers, the wisdom of glenn’s big decision — selling the family silver — was open to question anyway. He is passing through. Many in the FA are passing through.

so is it right that a short-term appointment can make such a long- lasting decision? isn’t it better that the FA board, and its much maligned blazers, act as a check and balance on an executive who could make a decision that changes english football, and is back selling biscuits, or head of the Post Office, a few months later?

great things have happened on glenn’s watch — the incredible World Cup-winning success of the age-group teams and england’s resurgence under gareth southgate — yet much of that was on its way prior to his arrival.

Too often, in times of trial, glenn has appeared blind- sided. The bullying scandal in the england women’s team brought a car-crash performance before Parliament, and the sacking of sam Allardyce is more a case of all’s well that ends well, rather than efficient crisis management.

Quite where this leaves FA chairman, and glenn’s ally in the Wembley sale, greg Clarke is unknown, but scudamore has a few days to go yet, so might be advised to hold off settling on a final figure for now.