Clarke rejects MPs’ criticism but promises reforms

Football Association chairman Greg Clarke has promised to step down if he fails to convince sports minister Tracey Crouch the governing body is serious about reforming itself.

However Clarke has strongly denied the FA, which will be scrutinised in Parliament this week, is failing the national game.

His pledge to change the FA’s governance structure or leave comes before the House of Commons debates a motion of “no confidence” in the association’s ability to reform.

That debate tomorrow afternoon has been secured by Damian Collins MP, the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee which has published two reports in recent years calling for an overhaul of the FA’s board and council.

But in an open letter published yesterday, Clarke wrote: “Our governance needs changing. We do need to be more diverse, more open about decision-making and we do need to better represent those playing the game.

“But we are not sitting idly by. The FA has a set of proposals to improve our governance which we will ratify and then take to the minister of sport in order to get her approval. Change won’t be easy, but I am confident it will happen – and it will be substantial.

“Delivering real change is my responsibility and I firmly believe this is critical for the future of the game.

“If the Government is not supportive of the changes when they are presented in the coming months, I will take personal responsibility for that. I will have failed. I will be accountable for that failure and would in due course step down from my role.”

Clarke, who has only been in post for five months, is clearly annoyed that tomorrow’s debate come so soon.

That annoyance is shared within Government, with Crouch understood to believe the debate, which will not lead to a binding vote, is premature, given the fact she has asked the FA, and other leading national governing bodies, to come back with reform proposals by the end of March.

This is part of her carrotand-stick approach to make the leadership of British sport more accountable, transparent and diverse.