FA plan to buy off blazers with perks

THE FA are considering setting up a council of honour to allow the blazers who lose their positions in the upcoming governance reforms to keep all their Wembley match perks.

The anger among councillors at the prospect of being kicked off the FA Council has been such that it threatens FA chairman Greg Dyke’s chances of being elected for another year at the summer meeting.

But it has emerged that the reform working group, who will put their proposals to the council next month, have come up with a twochamber solution that will allow them to change the make-up of the council to reflect the current game — but keep the blazers on side.

The working council chamber would have a far more varied cross-section of football interests — including players, managers, referees, fans, women’s football and possibly even agents, a powerful body who have been lobbying hard for a Wembley voice.

The council of honour will have only a ceremonial role but if members can keep those allimportant tickets and lavish VIP hospitality as a recognition of their work over the years, the blazers are likely to accept the changes.

THE Premier League are dispensing with their lion logo next season as part of a rebranding exercise but the 23-year-old trophy will not be altered. The two facing lions on either side of the silverware will survive as the PL see their prize as having iconic status. BBC sports editor Dan Roan’s compelling radio interview with imprisoned cricket fraudster Allen Stanford (right), which took seven months to set up, has been widely acclaimed — except by Roan’s BBC colleague Jonathan Agnew, who tweeted: ‘Are we interested? Destroyed Lives’, and later suggested it wasn’t worth the airtime.

The ever-combative Roan then re-tweeted a picture of Aggers and wife Emma whose accompanying rather less journalistically challenging blog was about revisiting the Cape Town vineyard where they got engaged 20 years ago.

THE result of the Swansea v Sunderland Premier League match tonight is seen as pivotal to the spending in the January transfer window. A win for Sunderland would see a number of teams drawn into the relegation mire and spark plenty of emergency transfers.