New PFA chief to earn quarter of Taylor’s £2m salary

GORDON TAYLOR’S successor will earn around a quarter of his mammoth £2million salary, Sportsmail can reveal. A new chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association is being sought following a review into the trade union’s governance. And it is understood that the successful candidate who replaces the 75–year-old will be paid in the region of £500,000 a year. That figure reflects a desire to find a high-calibre operator to take over from Taylor, but also recognises that Taylor’s wages are far too high. Taylor has agreed to step down following the publication of the review, which has been seen by the PFA’s management committee but has not yet been made public. They have already acted on some of the

key recommendations by appointing a three-person selection panel of independent chair Gary Neville, PFA director Edward Canty and Oxford defender John Mousinho.

That group will appoint four new independent non- directors who will then lead the search for Taylor’s replacement.

They will then work with the new incumbent in a structure which will see a dilution of the power base Taylor ( right) holds at the head of the union.

Taylor’s salary may not be the only package subject to review. As revealed by this newspaper last month, finance director Darren Wilson is paid £350,000 a year, a revelation that has caused outrage across the game. That figure is more than four times the average for someone carrying out the same role at an EFL club and is significantly higher than that of EFL chief executive Rick Parry.

The PFA are also subject to a regulatory compliance case being carried out by the Charity Commission which is expected to end soon.

Alongside Taylor’s salary, annual accounts released last month revealed the PFA are sitting on memorabilia worth £ 10.77m. Taylor was appointed PFA chairman in 1978 before taking over as chief executive in 1981. He has held the lucrative position ever since.

In 2018, a Sportsmail investigation uncovered that Taylor’s astonishing salary package was set by the business advisory committee of the PFA charitable trust. That committee is chaired by Gareth Griffiths, a former footballer and a trustee and board member of the PFA who also now works as an independent financial adviser. Earlier this year, this newspaper revealed that the PFA had launched a joint initiative with Griffiths’s wealth management firm in what some viewed as a conflict of interest.