Dyke U-turn over extra year at FA

FA chairman Greg Dyke has changed his mind about staying for another year and will leave Wembley this summer following considerable internal opposition to his reform agenda.

Dyke announced at the start of this month that he was going to put himself forward for FA council election in July in order to remain at the helm for the 2016-17 season.

That would have taken him past his 70th birthday, the age limit for the post.

But the strength of resistance he is facing as he tries to bring in much-needed reforms made it questionable whether an aggrieved council electorate would grant him another year.

The scepticism was such that some members of the FA board went into yesterday’s meeting needing to be convinced that it would benefit the governing body for their chairman to stay on — or for the reforms to happen.

But Dyke (right) pre- empted those discussions by announcing at the start that he was going to stand down at the summer meeting, realising the FA would need a more ‘conciliatory’ chairman for the forthcoming reform struggle.

He said: ‘When I announced I would stand as chairman for another year, I wasn’t certain this was the right decision for me or the FA. ‘I had already decided that if no reform was possible I was going to leave this summer. I recognise it is going to be a fight to get through the FA council.

‘What I now see is that even if we get the reform through, which will be a difficult and divisive process although essential, I am probably not the best person to pick up the pieces following the inevitable discord.

‘Whichever way the vote goes on reform, the FA will need a more conciliatory figure than me to build on what has been achieved.’

Impressive former FA chief executive Ian Watmore has ambitions to succeed Dyke but will face a hard job persuading the selection panel after resigning as CEO after only nine months in March 2010 in frustration at having reforms blocked — the same old FA story.

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TALK about pot, kettle, black. Keith Hackett, outspoken former boss of the Professional Game Match Officials, wrote on the You Are The Ref website that he thinks chunky Football League official Trevor Kettle is too fat to be a referee. Yet former official David Farrall, who ran the line for Hackett more often than any other referee, said fitness was not his strong point, calling Hackett ‘somewhat fleshy himself’.