Union put in jeopardy by failure to move with times

Independent review will ask tough questions of Taylor, not least about lack of a succession plan

They will have known nothing like it at the Professional Footballers’ Association when one day soon the QC leading their independent review closes the door of Gordon Taylor’s office and settles down for the conversation with the chief executive about his role, salary, longevity and all.

The oldest strategist in the English game has made his move to head off the biggest single challenge of his 37 years in charge and, as the old joke goes, if he does not like the findings of this independent review, he might just order another. Either way, he must be furious that the pressure brought to bear by Ben Purkiss, the PFA chairman and Walsall defender, has led to this climbdown in the space of six days.

Watching on Tuesday night as a tight-lipped Taylor was pursued to his car by television cameras, the swaying gait of the old pro on unreliable hips and knees, it was a stark reminder of how even the shrewdest negotiators can lose their touch eventually. Seventeen years ago, it was Taylor who took on the Premier League and won so decisively over the PFA’S share of television revenue.

Then, in 2001, there were fewer official statements – rather Taylor was always available on the phone or when he emerged from the long negotiations at the Premier League’s offices. Outspoken and accessible, he proved unplayable for the game’s authorities. The battle that Taylor won at the end of 2001 into 2002 was so wounding for Richard Scudamore that the Premier League never fought it again, preferring instead to secure guarantees on where the PFA’S share of the television deal would be spent.

“The clubs said we wouldn’t get the support of our members, of our foreign players, so I thought we have to show them what the PFA is about,” Taylor said in the aftermath of the strike ballot on Nov 8, 2001.

He claimed a 99 per cent vote in favour, with the great names of the era, including David Beckham and Gary Neville, on his side.

In those months, Taylor took English football to the brink and won for his members an extraordinary share of what were to be some extraordinary television deals, and as the Premier League’s television revenue spiked, his salary did so accordingly.

One source said this week that “Gordon was like the messiah”, a man whose bonuses were signed off with the fear that “he could make more money elsewhere”. He had secured the PFA’S future for

It is still reliant on the same man as in 2001, older, less robust, just as addicted to power

another era, but that era is closing now. His old foe Scudamore steps down on Dec 15.

Taylor, 73, has left a union little changed from the one he reinvigorated in 2001 – still reliant on the same man, older, less robust, but just as addicted to power. The cash reserves of £50 million are there but what, the QC is entitled to ask, is the succession plan?

There will be aspects to the last 17 years that will stand out, no more so than a chief executive salary package that climbed past £3million in 2014 while some of his oldest members struggled with dementia, a condition that showed all the signs of an industrial disease. As their families considered selling houses to pay for care costs, the benevolent fund was a fraction of the value of the salary paid to Taylor, who seemed strangely uninterested in the possibility that heading footballs could have killed his members.

Other failings have severe consequences. Taylor has allowed no one to develop into a worthy successor with a profile high enough to take on the many enemies the PFA will have when finally he goes. He dispatched his long-term deputy Mick Mcguire in 2009 in an out-of-court settlement after unspecific claims were made of bullying. No one at the PFA even speaks without Gordon’s approval. Taylor was still scampering up and down the wing for Birmingham City when General Franco died in his job in 1975 and one wonders if Taylor plans to do the same.

Taylor’s influence lies in his power to mobilise his membership, and as soon as the Premier League clubs sense a fracture between union and players they will exploit it. The PFA’S relevance or otherwise to the modern player, as identified by Purkiss, is what endangers its life beyond Taylor.

It is he who still knows how best to make reluctant clubs honour the small sums of money that make a difference to footballers you may never have heard of and, in 2001, he presented his mandate for industrial action with a selection of letters from members thanking the PFA. No doubt he could find some more today – such as Fabrice Muamba, who was promised a job for life at Bolton Wanderers in whose service he almost died, but works now for the PFA, not Bolton.

That is what Taylor can do for a career cut short and while he is not obliged to save every player who gambles away his house or gets his fingers burnt in a tax-avoidance scheme, he has rescued a few. But that does not change the wider picture and the health of a union that has become tied up in the reputation of one man alone.

The QC might start at the beginning of the modern PFA era. What happened to Taylor after the stand-off of 2001, when he galvanised his members and forced the Premier League to pay up? The answer may well be that, at the PFA, time has stood still. Inside the players’ union, it is still 2001, and Gordon reigns supreme, but outside are threats for which the PFA is woefully unprepared.