Now back up your words or get out

FOR an organisation lacking in trust, there was certainly a lot of it about yesterday. On 21 occasions, FA chairman Greg Clarke said the word when speaking to his organisation’s council at their autumn meeting. The FA, he said, had lost the trust of the public, of the football community, of their partners, even of the media, although they are not, by nature, a very trusting bunch. It was the nearest to a mea culpa we will get from Clarke. As his performance in Parliament showed, he doesn’t take criticism well. In fighting his corner, he alienated the PFA, England internationals, anyone who thinks inclusion programmes are more than fluff and, most damningly, abuse victim Andy Woodward, who claims Clarke humiliated him by revealing details of a private meeting. It was a tour de force of administrative incompetence. Clarke could barely have looked worse had he sat there blowing bubbles of gum and letting them pop around his mouth. This was his attempt at a serious reboot. So, here we go again: a top-tobottom cultural review. It isn’t the first and whether it is the last depends on whether Clarke is sincere or merely trying to maintain his position. He made all the right noises about women, about ethnic minorities, but the FA make a mistake if they believe this crisis was merely about racism or sexism. It was about an organisation that asked questions of their employees and then didn’t want to hear the answers; a body that held an investigation in which chief judge and chief witness were the same man. It shouldn’t really have required a storm, as Clarke had it, to blow through Wembley to appreciate this was wrong. Mark Sampson was removed from his post as England women’s manager over evidence the FA had sitting in a drawer. From the start, they have cared more for their brand and reputation than they have for conducting an investigation worthy of the word. Unless that changes, unless they prioritise more than the message, it really does not matter the colour or gender of their new appointments. Jack Warner and Jeffrey Webb were as corrupt as any white guy during their time at FIFA. Heather Rabbatts was as inept as any man the day she appointed Michael Johnson, a former footballer who had admitted finding homosexuality ‘detestable’, to her FA Inclusion Advisory Board. Yes, greater representation for women and ethnic minorites would help modernise the FA. Yet the trust that has been lost, as Clarke admitted, is not simply from one community. It is trust in the FA to do what is right and to see it through, regardless of consequence. It is the trust to value integrity above marketing spiel. It is the trust to recognise what is important. Do that, and Clarke will be worthy of his position. Compromise and no fine speech will save him. MARTIN SAMUEL’S COLUMN — SEE PAGES 82-83