http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2012/mar/13/fa-white-flag-soul-football
FA raises white flag in 20-year fight for the soul of football
The Premier League has emerged victorious after the governing body signed
away much of its authority with barely a whimper
After a rambling political process which called on the Football Association
to get a grip on the national game, David Bernstein's FA convened at Wembley
Stadium alongside the Premier League and Football League, and formally
surrendered much of its authority.
Few noticed, besides the scrutinising chairman of the Football Supporters'
Federation, Malcolm Clarke, partly because the FA's pallid response to the
government's modest call for reform is a contender for the most boring
football document ever produced.
Yet old hands of these bureaucratic machinations know that boredom, complete
here with organisational charts and barely comprehensible management speak,
can be a lethal tool of submission. Probably its authors' greatest
achievement was to have the sports minister, Hugh Robertson - who once
boldly called football "the country's worst governed sport" - welcoming the
document, when a close read reveals the football authorities have rejected
or blatantly ignored almost all of Robertson's recommendations.
Robertson's Conservative party included in the coalition agreement with the
Liberal Democrats a government commitment to "encourage the reform of
football governance rules to support the co-operative ownership of football
clubs by supporters". It is not clear, almost two years on, how the
government thinks it has promoted that policy, despite an inquiry into
football by the House of Commons select committee for culture, media and
sport, and Robertson's response, in October.
In it, backed by the threat that the government will pass laws if not
satisfied, Robertson's most positive recommendation for the principle that
fans, not just absentee billionaires, should be involved with their clubs,
was this: "The government urges the football authorities to consider ways to
actively encourage and incentivise methods of including supporter
representatives on the boards of clubs."
You can rifle through the football authorities' 16-page proposals as many
times as the heart will bear, and find not even a response to that, let
alone some ideas for how such a progressive - and complex - plan might be
put into practice.
The steady undermining of the commitment to fund Supporters Direct, the
organisation which has since 2000 promoted fan ownership and representation
in clubs, is a masterpiece of watering down. The select committee's report
praised Supporters Direct as "absolutely vital to nearly all supporters'
trust success stories", criticised the FA, Premier League and Football
League for their "reluctance to devise a formula" for the organisation's
"long-term future", and said: "We urge the football authorities to work
quickly towards a funding solution." Robertson responded by saying "a
solution to provide funding for the long-term future of Supporters Direct .
should not be beyond the skill of the football authorities."
The FA and leagues' response to that says Supporters Direct should
"primarily rely on funding raised from their membership or their own
initiatives". The Premier League adds that it intends to make available "an
element of match-funding". So the £3.5bn Premier League is proposing to
withdraw further from funding the organisation which the government said
"makes a vital contribution" and require the money for a handful of modestly
paid staff to be raised from volunteer and time-pressed supporters' trusts
themselves. And the sports minister who asked the authorities for "a
solution to provide funding" found himself welcoming the proposals.
On the other specific issues the football authorities have also mostly
ignored the sports minister. The government, obsessed with the numbers on
the FA's board, called for it to be reduced to 10; it has been increased to
14, although there is a commitment to bring it down to "between eight and
12" by 2013. Robertson called for the FA's rule-making council, currently
composed almost entirely of white, male, senior citizens, to become
"genuinely representative of the modern game". The FA and leagues' document
presents no proposals to do that at all.
Robertson interested himself in the question of the huge financial gap
between the Premier League and the Football League, under the heading
"parachute payments", and said: "There is a role for the FA in such
discussions." The football authorities' response specifically states that
"parachute payments" and "club distributions" are "outside the scope of the
FA".
The football authorities do suggest a licensing system should be introduced
to govern how clubs are constituted, as called for by Robertson, but keep
the FA a long way out of the important issues. Robertson, when calling for
it, said: "There is a legitimate role for the FA . to ensure that
appropriate and consistent checks and balances are in place to protect the
overall financial integrity of the national game and its long-term
viability."
Yet in agreeing to a club licensing system, the Premier League and Football
League have secured the sole right to recommend what rules should be in the
licence and to ensure their clubs comply. The FA, crucially, has also agreed
to class a list of meaty issues as "outside the scope of the FA". These
include: "Club and league commercial and financial matters; club business
and operating issues, stadium, customer/fan issues; club/league relationship
with other competition organisers including Uefa; club ticket prices; club
distributions and parachute payments."
So, to select committee and government calls for football's historic
governing body to take greater charge of the modern game's direction, the FA
responded by giving up involvement at its heart.
This is a historic abandonment by the FA, 21 years after its "Blueprint for
the Future of Football" outraged the Football League by supporting the First
Division clubs' money-motivated moves to break away. The FA said the
breakaway would be good for the England team, because the top division would
reduce to 18 clubs by 1996, so play fewer games, and the new Premier League
"should be governed by a committee of the FA, [including] the FA chairman
and chief executive".
The owners of the top clubs gobbled up the gift of a breakaway, to keep, not
share, the new millions spawned by their marriage with Rupert Murdoch's
BSkyB, but they shed the requirement to reduce to 18 clubs and any idea
their new league would be run by the FA.
Bernstein's predecessor as FA chairman, Lord Triesman, was hounded by the
Premier League for warning of clubs' debts and seeking a greater governing
role. His chief executive, Ian Watmore, walked out, exasperated by the lack
of authority in the role. Watmore's replacement, Alex Horne, accepted the
lesser title of general secretary, and at the Football League, the vastly
experienced Andy Williamson wisely hides his light under the bushel of chief
operating officer.
That leaves Richard Scudamore, of the Premier League, as the last chief
executive standing and this is a victory over football for him and the
plutocrats who pay his millionaire's salary and bonus. It is the end of a
20-year war of attrition by the Premier League since the FA split the
Football League. Football's first governing body believed then it would be
strengthened not, as it has turned out, terminally weakened, surrendering to
the power of money.
End of an era of football politics
1991 Blueprint for the Future of Football
The FA backs the First Division clubs to break away from sharing their money
with the other three divisions of the Football League, and form the Premier
League.
1997 Football Task Force
Established by the new Labour government, concerned by increased
commercialism and ticket prices. Led to the establishment of Supporters
Direct and some investment by the Premier League in grassroots facilities
and community programmes.
2008 Andy Burnham's "Seven questions"
The former Labour culture secretary called for football to "reassess its
relationship with money." The FA drew up proposals for a licensing system
which the Premier League and Football League refused to sanction.
2011 Government call for reform
The Conservative sports minister Hugh Robertson responds to the select
committee report by calling for the FA to take a lead in reforming football,
including encouraging supporter representatives on club boards
2012 Football's licensing system
The football authorities propose a licensing system run by the leagues, and
the FA lists operational areas in professional football, including "fan
issues," ticket prices and the distribution of money, as "matters outside
the scope of the FA".
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All
rights reserved.
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