Watmore: I’m the man to run the FA
As his son Duncan shines for Sunderland, Ian Watmore has set his sights on English football’s most powerful role
STANDING at the gates to Sunderland’s main car park at the Stadium of Light is a steward in luminous yellow. He approaches the car. ‘Hello,’ says the driver. ‘I’m Duncan Watmore’s dad. He said I could park in his space.’
This is Ian Watmore’s main involvement in football these days. Once chief executive of the FA, he resigned six years ago for reasons he has just detailed on our threehour journey from Cheshire. It turns out the stench of corruption at FIFA was one of them.
So now he watches his son play for either Sunderland or England Under 21s, commentates for the radio station at Altrincham’s Moss Lane and occasionally catches an Arsenal game — the team he supported as a boy when his late father, Ken, was a doctor on the club’s medical staff.
‘The last game we attended together was the FA Cup semifinal against Manchester United at Villa Park in 1999,’ he says. ‘ In one photograph you can actually see us through Nigel Winterburn’s legs.’
Today, however, Watmore says he wants to get back into football administration, with Greg Dyke’s decision to stand down as FA chairman this summer due to leave a void he would like to fill.
Now 57, Watmore’s c.v. is impressive. A degree in mathematics and management studies from Cambridge helped him rise to become UK managing director at management consultants Accenture before occupying senior positions in the Civil Service. Before joining the FA he was the head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. Afterward, he became permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office.
Watmore quit the Civil Service in May 2012 to spend more time with his family in Cheshire, where wife Georgina, once an Oxbridgeeducated investment banker, is now Rector of Tarporley.
But in the past four years he has also gained the experience that makes him a more than credible candidate for the most powerful position in English football.
Watmore has served not only on the board of the English Institute of Sport but also on the board of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and was then a member of the panel appointed to review England’s dismal efforts at the tournament.
Through Duncan he has been able to experience other parts of football. He was already a parent whose son was rejected aged 12 by a football club academy — in his case that at Manchester United.
But he also watched Duncan combine his studies (despite both parents and two brothers attending Oxford or Cambridge, Duncan was the first Watmore to gain a first- class honours degree) with Conference football at Altrincham and then saw him progress to the Sunderland first team. Last summer he even negotiated Duncan’s new four-year contract.
‘My experience is unusual — eclectic you might say,’ Watmore says. ‘It has given me an insight.
‘Duncan was at United for five years before he was released, as most kids are. So I have an under- standingtdi of fh how thatth t affectsff t bothb th the boy and the family.
‘He ended up at Altrincham and then moved to Sunderland. I saw how hard it is to break into the first team. It’s tough.’
Duncan would also enjoy a stint at Hibernian. ‘He played in a HibsHearts derby, which was great, but it also gave us experience of the loan system,’ says Watmore.
The contract negotiations were also interesting. ‘From the moment Duncan was visible to league clubs we were besieged by agents,’ he says. ‘We said no to them all.
‘Then I met an agency that was part of a North East law firm. I liked that they were regulated by the Law Society, and in the end they asked me to operate as a non-exec chairman. Duncan liked them, too, and decided to sign. The contract negotiation was done by me and an agent.
‘It’s been useful to see how an agency works but I would stept away t to b become FA chairman.’
The biggest obstacle would appear to be the way he resigned as FA chief executive in March 2010, less than a year into the job. Watmore accepts it could count against him.
‘I let people down,’ he says. ‘I let the staff down and I let the FA Council down. I don’t regret the decision but I regret leaving some very talented people.
‘I was in a place where there was no way forward — in office but not in power. I didn’t feel I could have a meaningful impact on the important issues. There was nothing “chief” or “executive” about the role.’ But during his spell in charge Watmore did have an impact. Work was begun on the National Football Centre and he fought successfully against those blocking the creation of the Women’s Super League on the basis of cost. After the collapse of sports TV channel Setanta cost the FA 25 per centt off it its revenue, h he also managed to negotiate a new deal with ESPN while making savings without cutting jobs.
But it was the difficulties in trying to implement change — and wider concerns about the highest echelons of the game — that persuaded him to go.
‘I could see first-hand the corruption at FIFA,’ he says. ‘I had no evidence but you don’t need someone to pass you a brown envelope to know corruption is in the air.
‘I left before the vote but the campaign for the 2018 World Cup was under way. There would be expectation that you would support UEFA and FIFA initiatives in return for support for the (England) bid. There were hints that votes would be given if we agreed to a friendly with their team.
‘I was very clear in my own mind that we wouldn’t do that and the bid team were of the same view.
‘But Jack Warner (now disgraced former CONCACAF president) came to Wembley and we had to treat him like royalty, which made me feel pretty uncomfortable. There had already been certain revelations about him.’
At Wembley there were other issues. ‘I have lots of examples but here’s one,’ Watmore says. ‘I wanted to spend a small amount of FA money on an initiative with the League Managers’ Association. These are extremely highprofile figures and yet they only ever came into contact with the FA in governance disputes.
‘Richard Bevan at the LMA wanted a bit of funding for an education initiative for younger managers, exactly the sort of thing the FA should be investing in. But the Professional Game Board blocked it. I don’t know why. Perhaps because the LMA did a good job of standing up to the clubs when they chose to sack them.’
Watmore also wanted to ‘change the formula for money the FA makes’ and push more revenue from the cash-rich professional game towards the grass-roots. ‘Lower-league clubs play such a critical part in nurturing talent,’ he says. ‘ Jamie Vardy is a great example of that, but so is my son. But I just couldn’t get through this treacle and make it happen.
‘I’ve got a list — basic administrative things you would expect the chief executive of the FA to be able to do, but couldn’t.’
So why does he want to go back? ‘I’m older and wiser,’ he says. ‘I have a lot more experience of the game and of sporting administration generally.
‘The FA board is different. It now has independent directors. And the council has a bigger role to play. The financial situation in the leagues, with the ownership of clubs, is more stable now.
‘The environment has changed. Corruption has been unearthed. There is going to be a new world order in the sport and, if people want me to, I believe I can make a contribution.’
“There’s a new world order so now I can have an impact”