MARTIN SAMUEL: THE OLD CODGERS HAVE CALLED FA’S BLUFF

THE difference between the FA and the grassroots of English football is that one represents a career, the other a service.

Nobody organises the fixtures for under 14 cup tournaments in Northamptonshire as a means of getting ahead in business. But an executive role at the FA? That opens up all manner of possibilities.

Particularly if you do something big, or radical. Adam Crozier gave England its first foreign manager and moved on to be chief executive of royal Mail and ITV. It marked him out as a man of action, a bold thinker, one unafraid to challenge convention.

And if Martin Glenn and Greg Clarke succeed in selling the national stadium to the Jacksonville Jaguars, it will do the same.

Nobody expects either of them to be around when the deal goes through. They’ll have moved on to bigger things. And they certainly won’t be around when the first of the 3G pitches the sale has bequeathed to the nation needs replacing. Some poor soul from the grassroots will be picking up the fall-out from that.

This was a point made by a few of them yesterday and it apparently came as quite a shock.

Who pays? The FA didn’t have much of an answer. Who pays, when in eight to 10 years, the 3G pitches that were the dividend from the sale of Wembley are in need of complete overhaul?

It costs £20,000 just to roll one up, in the region of £500,000 to lay the new one down, if full size. And where does the money come from second time around?

Once the Wembley windfall has been spent, who pays the tab for maintenance, repair, replacement, disposal?

This is the stuff grassroots folk know about. This is what they do. It isn’t glamorous and you won’t get to head up the nation’s postal service at the end of it. But grassroots people sweat the small stuff. Like the recycling of crumb rubber from obsolete pitches, like the ongoing cost of a surface that will need renewal every decade.

The FA thought the little people could be bought off with big numbers but the further down football’s pyramid one goes, the more the smallest details matter.

They aren’t impressed by a drop-in from England manager Gareth Southgate any more than they will have been spooked by Mark Burrows, the FA chief financial officer, talking of £72million upgrades being required if Wembley remains the responsibility of the governing body.

BurrOWS is a classic FA man, in that he’s been involved for about two years and has a business background in Virgin Active, PWC, Iglo and BSkyB.

He’ll go back to that world one day and if recent executive appointments are anything to go by, probably one day soon. The FA are a stepping stone.

Glenn is their sixth chief executive this century. Yet study the FA Council and you’ll see the same names stretching back decades. Some think that’s a bad thing. It’s not. It speaks of service, not self-advancement.

How much fun is there really to be had heading up Westmorland Football Association?

The odd free lunch, the odd low-grade jolly. Compare that to the hours of organisational meetings and logistical planning, presentations, the juggling of figures — and for zero recognition, comparatively.

That is why it was the old codgers, not the CEOs of the professional clubs, who picked the biggest hole in the FA’s plan yesterday.

For this isn’t just about selling off the family silver, or losing control of a significant national asset. It isn’t about whether or not this is a bad deal, or whether better can be found.

The grassroots have called the FA’s bluff by talking long-term. In 10, 20, 30 years, who pays? And they didn’t have a clue, because it won’t be their problem.

Play their cards right and it might not even be their problem if it all fell apart next year.