ODD REIGN OF GAFFES AND GLORY
Wembley is the final straw as Glenn goes with a bloody nose
TWO weeks before his plan to sell Wembley Stadium went up in smoke and left Martin Glenn with a bloody nose as well as a bill for costs approaching £10million for his employers, the FA chief executive spoke passionately about the future.
He was sitting alongside Gareth Southgate celebrating the fact that the England manager had signed a new contract, and looked ahead to Euro 2020 and beyond.
Glenn confidently predicted then, in October, that the structure was now in place for the senior team to end that long wait for another major tournament victory, and gave every indication that he would be there for the crowning moment.
Yesterday the FA insisted Glenn’s sudden decision to quit was not in any way connected to his failure to flog the national stadium and reinvest the money in grassroots football. It was a personal decision, we were told.
It had more to do with a lack of desire to oversee what will be an extremely busy 2020 for the governing body. His recent marriage to the ex-wife of celebrity chef John Torode had seemingly persuaded him to find a better work-life balance too.
But it is hard not to think that Wembley was the final straw for yet another FA chief executive left frustrated by a role too often hampered by the structure of an organisation that gives so much power to the blazers on the council.
Fulham owner Shahid Khan withdrew his £ 600m offer for Wembley before a council vote that was expected to conclude that he could take his money elsewhere, kicking Glenn’s ambitious vision for football in this country into the long grass.
And Glenn no doubt sensed, after using a national newspaper to express his views on how postBrexit Britain might look in terms of quotas for foreign players, that he was heading for another defeat at the hands of our Premier League clubs. The FA are right to push for more opportunities for English players but it is an argument they appear unlikely to win.
Glenn’s four-year tenure has not been entirely disappointing. The national teams comprising men and women have enjoyed an impressive period of success and while coming as a result of that bruising episode with Sam Allardyce, the decision to give the ‘impossible’ job to Southgate has proved an astute one. The former crisps boss also deserves credit for the winter break that will finally be introduced next season.
But Glenn walks away as a chief executive who will be remembered as much for his gaffes as for his moments of glory.
He was lucky to survive the Eni Aluko affair, especially when it emerged he had displayed an alarming lack of curiosity when first informed two years earlier that the then England women’s manager, Mark Sampson, had been the subject of a safeguarding investigation.
The same situation led to a carcrash appearance before a parliamentary committee, even if FA chairman Greg Clarke was the one who finally cracked under interrogation from MPs and launched a misguided attack on PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor.
Glenn was popular with staff and yesterday they were saddened by the news. But he was viewed with suspicion by the old guard. He said he was not a football man when sat alongside Roy Hodgson the morning after the crushing defeat by Iceland in Euro 2016 and the blazers saw Glenn, like some of his predecessors, as a career man simply passing through.
Clarke clearly suspected as much when it emerged in March that he had enlisted headhunters Odgers Berndtson to find the next chief executive. At the time the FA claimed that there was ‘no current or planned timeline for Martin Glenn to leave’.
Nine months later, however, and he is on his way, with a job advertisement scheduled for Monday and Clarke due to run the recruitment process. One early contender could be Brighton chief executive Paul Barber, who has commercial expertise and has worked at the FA in the past.
‘We can today announce that Martin Glenn has resigned from his position of chief executive officer. He will remain in post until the end of the 2018-19 season,’ said the FA in a statement. ‘During his tenure he helped create the culture around St George’s Park and the England teams which has led to an unprecedented period of success for elite teams across all age groups in tournaments.
‘In 2018, England men’s seniors reached the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup following on from the Lionesses’ third-place finish in 2015, while the U17 and U20s both became World Cup winners in 2017 and the women’s U20s finished third at their World Cup in 2018.’
Dan Ashworth, the technical director already heading for Brighton, might argue that he had more to do with on-field success.
But Glenn deserves praise for what the FA statement called a change of culture: ‘ He has recruited a new team which has helped make us a more progressive, effective and diverse organisation. Now, 34 per cent of our staff are female and 12 per cent from a BAME background.
‘In his four years, Glenn has overseen a 40 per cent increase in revenue which has enabled us to invest record amounts in the game at all levels.’
Glenn added: ‘When I joined the FA, I was tasked with improving
the effectiveness of the organisation. i also joined with the strong belief that the england teams’ performances in tournaments could and should improve, and that the experience of the millions of people who play football could be a better one.
‘i will leave feeling proud of the success of the performance of all the england teams.’
He did not, however, explain why he has taken the decision to go now. Probably because it’s not something he wants to admit.