PFA chiefs sue union’s investigators

FOUR PFA executives, including former players Garth Crooks and Brendan Batson, have launched an extraordinary High Court legal action against the Charity Commission amid its investigation into the union which is expected to deliver devastating findings.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Crooks and Batson, trustees of the PFA Charity, have engaged lawyers Brabners to sue the Commission — which has already said it has ‘serious concerns’ over ‘conflict of interests’ at the PFA body and suspended one official while its inquiry is ongoing.

Also named in the legal action are Gareth Griffiths, another PFA charity trustee, and Darren Wilson, who as PFA finance director has also had ultimate financial oversight of the charity.

The PFA Charity confirmed last night that the legal costs of the case will be funded by the union but would not discuss the reasons for the action. A spokesman said: ‘Until we get the Charity Commission report we would be reluctant to comment. We would not want to affect the outcome of the report.’

The charity became the vehicle by which the union paid staff salaries including the £1.2million earned by former chief executive Gordon Taylor and £345,516 received by Wilson. Its 2020 accounts state that £5.52m of PFA staff costs were paid out by the charity, though charity law stipulates its income should only be used for its charitable giving and running costs.

Crooks, who still does media work for the BBC, and Batson are thought to have been asked by the Charity Commission why salaries were part of its outgoings.

Griffiths, one of the three-man committee who agreed the salary of now-retired Taylor, is understood to have been asked about his own relationship with the PFA. He is co-founder and managing director of ProSport Wealth Management — listed as an ‘investment broker’ to the PFA charity during part of Taylor’s tenure.

Though the details of the High Court case are thought to have been unknown to some executives within the PFA, the fact that the four men are challenging to the Commission is not.

One top executive at the PFA has already been suspended as part of the Charity Commission investigation, launched in 2019.

Taylor’s successor Maheta Molango has been waiting until the publication of the inquiry’s findings before take up a position as PFA Charity trustee — if the charity remains in existence at all. The four charity trustees suing the Commission are all Taylor allies, now seen as distinct from a second group of PFA leaders looking to reform the union under Molango.

The potentially expensive High Court case comes at a time when families of former players suffering with dementia are desperate for financial help from the union.

Natalie Parkes-Thompson, daughter of former player and Tony Parkes, has said she has hit ‘a barrier’ with union funding. Fans from one of Parkes’ former clubs, Blackburn Rovers, have launched a crowd-funding page to raise money for him.

The PFA Charity spokesman said that the Charity Commission issue was not preventing the organisation from modernising and working to help ex-players.