Reading RA - From the Middle

But what is the Football Association about?

Over the last week or so the press and media have been preoccupied with a number of crises. Most have involved the leaders of various countries but I want to focus on the crisis hitting the leader of that other ‘nation’, the English Football Association.

This is a subject close to my heart for reasons that will become apparent. Anyone who is involved in football in this country, at whatever level, is controlled, yes, controlled by the FA. In order to understand this, one needs to understand exactly how the FA is made up.

Many and various

The real power of the FA, as we have just seen, is in the hands of the 92 (ninety-two) members of the Football Association Council. These members come from County Football Associations and other footballing bodies such as the English Schools FA. the Women’s FA, and even the New Zealand FA. The oldest person sitting on this council which controls the destiny of all of us in football is 88, the youngest is 39, who also happens to be the only woman member.

At the head of this body are the Chairman and the Chief Executive who ultimately control (or in the light of recent events do not control). the whole multi-million pound business. This article is not the place to discuss the recent developments with these two illustrious people, readers will make up their own minds about those.

How the money is spent

My point, and this is what makes me extremely angry, is that those 90-odd people in the hierarchy at Lancaster Gate decide where money is being spent on our game.

Of course there are good things to come out of the FA coffers, such as grants to youth football and schemes to help underprivileged kids get involved with the game, but millions being handed over to enable us an extra 1% chance of getting the 2006 World Cup, which I feel was never realistic, is at best opportunist, at worst reprehensible.

Support for referees?

We, as referees, are always being criticised, sometimes with reason, and might expect committed support from the FA which actually needs us. Yet we feel unsupported, for example, by the mild treatment of wrong-doers like Di Canio. You might also be surprised to know that the FA refuses to support a practical examination as part of the qualification for new referees (proposed by the Reading RA and accepted as Referees’ Association policy in 1982}. Even more importantly, there is no place on the 92 strong (or weak) FA Council for any representative of the Referees’ Association in spite of repeated requests. That, to me, is a disgrace.

Reform needs to be radical

There is a lot wrong with the FA and it will not be solved by getting rid of the odd figurehead. The whole association needs a radical structural overhaul, so that people with new ideas and visions for the millennium can get started, not spend the next fours years concentrating on one thing - getting the 2006 World Cup to England - which will only generate problems for many and, I nearly forgot, a lot of money for big business.

Get back to basics

I happened to be in France last Summer immediately before the World Cup and the interest within the population was next to nil. I am afraid the media hype for such events now outweighs the events themselves. What we really need is more money wisely spent to preserve the game of football the vast mass of us know and play and referee. Let’s have a new and streamlined FA capable of radical thought and action and committed to our game and let the National Team, Euro and World Cups look after themselves with their own sponsorship of which there never seems to be a shortage.

John Moore

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