by Howard Borrell
I thought it appropriate that we look at the announcement made a fortnight ago that an internal FA revamp has been approved.
It's been a long time coming and I'm not yet sure I (or anyone else come to that) fully appreciate the true implication of the statement made.
The Chesterfield based Chairman Geoff Thompson explained "I am delighted that these proposals have been passed by the Council, It has taken much time and effort to draw up these recommendations which we believe are the best possible reforms to make an important step forward for the FA in the interests of all sectors of the game. There was an impassioned debate among the councillors. It was very important that we gave everybody the opportunity to talk about the issues and express their views".
The report's author Lord Burns believes the Football Association's proposed revamp is a huge step in the right direction even though it does not go as far as he would like." It's a big step forward and I'm very pleased to see that so many things that I have recommended have been put together in this set of proposals," Burns said." The most important of these is to appoint an independent chairman onto the FA board, to reduce the board from 12 to 10 members and to award a vote to the chief executive."
The council's vote must be ratified by shareholders in order for the proposals to be realised, but Lord Burns insists doing so is vital for the FA to become a 21st-century organisation."In general terms, I think they have accepted recommendations on most of the areas where I made recommendations, particularly to do with the composition of the council and widening the membership, about forming the semi-autonomous compliance unit and also strengthening the powers of the board.
"Where they haven't gone quite as far as I recommended was about changing the composition of the board. I recommended two or three independent directors and also two executive directors in order to have a greater degree of independence."
Burns admitted people may initially struggle to notice any difference in how the FA operates but insists the benefits will become clear over time. "In the short term, this is not going to make a great deal of difference," he said. "I think in the long term it will make a difference."It will make the FA a body which is capable of making decisions for the 21st century, which will be able to deal with some of the major problems which are now in a huge sport, a sport which has vast amount of money circulating.
"They have struggled to take decisions on some important and difficult issues in the past because the board consisted of an equal number of people from the professional game and from the national game and I think the proposals we have today do move that forward."
The Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney added his approval: "After 12 months of discussions, I welcome, on behalf of The Football League, the FA Council's decision to approve Lord Burns' recommendations. It is a result that justifies the enormous amount of work that a lot of us have put in. These reforms provide a sensible way forward for football in this country by providing a workable balance between the interests of the games' various stakeholders. I now look forward to arguing the case for these changes, once again, at the next stage of the process in early 2007."
All very wordy and confusing but if it means that we find expertise to get us out of the Wembley crisis which arose when amateurs made a series of professional decisions after ill-thought-out recommendations sounded a little too good to be true (which they were) - great. But if it means that the Premiership merely uses the change as a tool to dominate our national sport even more I'll be both livid and unsurprised.
There is a big danger that the tail will end up wagging the dog which would be fine if there was even an ounce of altruism floating about. These recommendations looked to have been shelved and for them to have been resurrected means the big boys must see a way to make gains that isn't currently obvious in the initial wordy outpourings.
Call me cynical but I expect to be right too !
The key elements of the proposals are:
- Restructuring of The FA Board to include an independent Chairman and voting rights for the Chief Executive
- The National Game and Professional Game to each have five members on the Main Board
- Expansion of The FA Council to include supporters, players (PFA), managers (LMA), and referees as well as representatives of disability and BME (black and ethnic minority) groups. Also greater representation of the professional and semi-professional game
- The establishment of a semi-autonomous Regulation & Compliance Unit
- The formation of a National Game Board and a Professional Game Board to deal with matters exclusive to these areas of the game as sub-boards of the Main Board
- The National Game to have the same voting rights as the Professional Game at Shareholders' Meetings
