FA shake-up vital for good of game
COUNTY SUPPORTERS CO-OPERATIVE COLUMN itself as the independent regulator of football.
In SD’s view failure to take up this role, which is common for a national FA in other countries, would result in the continuation of clubs being in continual crisis up and down the country each week.
Too many powers are currently delegated and league sanctions patching up problem clubs aren’t strong enough when the damage has already been done.
My view is that much needs to be done, and some swift action is required at the sharp end of things to bring on legislation which would create an empowered FA truly representative of the modern game.
The FA has been placed under increasing pressure to reform its governance structure, but I think that any reform must be accompanied by a powerful independent regulatory role, and an updated and representative governance structure.
Football plays such a large part in ordinary people’s lives, and it would be good to see, after all the deliberations and machinations, a structure emerge that will truly serve the game as a whole and recognise the needs of the game’s grassroots.
It is vital that these needs receive the attention and investment they deserve.
This need not be at the expense of the Premier League, in fact it is surely in the interests of same to recognise that, like the grassroots, the EPL is just one part of the UK Football Pyramid, and that keeping a thriving grassroots only consolidates the Premier League’s position.
And once the current issues of governance are sorted then maybe attention might just then turn to the matter of more meaningful supporter involvement at both club level in the national game.
Back in the fifties, England International Len Shackleton, in a book, penned to supplement his meagre earnings, offered a blank page as evidence of what the average football director knew about football.
I would not subscribe to that opinion, but I am sure that, by the same token, today’s football directors do not have a monopoly on football wisdom, and thus surely, they and football clubs at every level inside and outside the Football League, would accrue great benefit from the informed and enthusiastic input that supporters could bring to the table.
I am not holding my breath.