The only solution for the FA is to rip the whole thing up and start again
WHEN campaigners for racial equality in the United States this summer called to defund the police, they were not against the idea of the police. Rather, they were against the reality of the police forces with which they were confronted.
Institutions in which they believed systemic racism and/or inequality reinforced by vested interests resistant to change doomed all attempts at reform to failure.
The only way forward, they argued, was to rip it up and start again. Blank canvas, clean slate, new blood, new structures, new ethos – rather than a sticking plaster on the same old weeping wound.
Champions for equality and diversity in
British society and English football must look at this week’s events at the Football Association and wonder if the same approach isn’t needed here.
With Greg Clarke’s era as chairman ended by his own clumsy, outdated, revealing and offensive language, the FA has promised his successor will be chosen from ‘a diverse talent pool’.
Paul Elliott, Sanjay Bhandari and Baroness Sue Campbell were duly mentioned as candidates; a black man, an Asian man and a woman. If only it was that simple. Sadly, it’s likely some at the FA probably think it is. While Clarke only recently launched a new equality initiative and, heard in the most charitable light, could be said to have spoken clumsily rather than offensively in his remarks to the DCMS, there can be no doubt his language eloquently spoke of the kind of outdated thinking that is the inevitable consequence of an organisation still largely run by white, middle-class men of a certain age. So by all means replace the 63-yearold, white, male chairman with someone of a different colour, sex or generation – maybe even all three – but if the vested interests of the FA Council which hold the power find themselves at odds with the new regime it won’t matter what that person looks or sounds like.
My view, of course, can be dismissed as that of a partially informed observer so don’t take it from me, take it from Greg Dyke, Clarke’s predecessor as chairman, who left in 2016 after growing exasperated at his inability to push through what he saw as much
‘It’s the consequence of being run by white, middle-class men of a certain age’
needed reform. Dyke told The Times this week: ‘My advice to anyone offered the job is; don’t take it.
‘The governance structure of the FA is archaic and unless they bring in an independent regulator separate from the clubs and the grassroots, it will not be effective.’
Incidentally, when Dyke left the FA, his own predecessor David Bernstein said: ‘I can understand his frustration, which matches my frustration.’
So, we have been here for at least a decade, and without more meaningful change we will surely be here again before very long.
There are those who believe the FA is an irrelevance in modern football where the all-powerful Premier League is king. I strongly disagree.
The lifeblood of our national game remains the grassroots and youth football, where tens of thousands of people give up their free time to facilitate and nurture the passion of others, be it coaches, administrators, referees, kit washers or groundsmen. Not to mention the amateur players – young and old. Their interests always
need representing, but now more than ever in the midst of a pandemic which means they can watch football on TV but not participate themselves.
We also need an FA to promote the national team, to mediate between the conflicting interests of the Premier League and Football League and, as this week has illustrated only too well, to advance and protect the cause of equality and diversity in the sport we all love.
So we need an FA alright, we just don’t need this FA. So open the windows and let some fresh air into that stuffy boardroom. Invite in the masses from the windswept, rainy touchlines. Rip it up, start again.