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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/12/the-guardian-view-on-the-football-association-wrong-regulator-for-the-beautiful-game
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| The Guardian view on the football association: wrong regulator for the beautiful game The Guardian view on the football association: wrong regulator for the beautiful game | |
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| When the sports minister Tracey Crouch takes her seat on Tuesday before MPs on the select committee on culture, media and sport, she will be in no doubt of the scale of the task at hand to save the national game. Football has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: light regulation, minimal enforcement and billions of pounds sloshing around leave the game open to abuse. In the cross hairs is the Football Association – the game’s national governing body – which has been described as a relic of the past run by a cartel that is unable to check the power of the cash-rich Premier League. In a bizarre twist five white men, with an average age of almost 65, accuse the association of being run by “elderly white men”. | When the sports minister Tracey Crouch takes her seat on Tuesday before MPs on the select committee on culture, media and sport, she will be in no doubt of the scale of the task at hand to save the national game. Football has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: light regulation, minimal enforcement and billions of pounds sloshing around leave the game open to abuse. In the cross hairs is the Football Association – the game’s national governing body – which has been described as a relic of the past run by a cartel that is unable to check the power of the cash-rich Premier League. In a bizarre twist five white men, with an average age of almost 65, accuse the association of being run by “elderly white men”. |
| These criticisms to a large extent are true. But any solution has to go beyond the one proposed by Damian Collins, the PR-savvy Tory chair of the select committee, who seems to think a bill promoted from the backbenches will clean up the Augean stables of football. It will not. Without government support, a shake up of football’s archaic regulatory structure will achieve nothing. Yet politicians of all stripes have shied away from regulating the beautiful game ever since the top clubs seceded in 1992 and forced the FA to allow them to keep the bulk of lucrative television revenues. There are also few elected representatives who want a public slanging match with Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger, who said football should be “ruled by football people”. Given the dozens of potential suspects identified in the football abuse scandal, this is not a sustainable proposition. | These criticisms to a large extent are true. But any solution has to go beyond the one proposed by Damian Collins, the PR-savvy Tory chair of the select committee, who seems to think a bill promoted from the backbenches will clean up the Augean stables of football. It will not. Without government support, a shake up of football’s archaic regulatory structure will achieve nothing. Yet politicians of all stripes have shied away from regulating the beautiful game ever since the top clubs seceded in 1992 and forced the FA to allow them to keep the bulk of lucrative television revenues. There are also few elected representatives who want a public slanging match with Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger, who said football should be “ruled by football people”. Given the dozens of potential suspects identified in the football abuse scandal, this is not a sustainable proposition. |
| The Premier League dominates football. Its clubs will share a £5.1bn television deal over the next three seasons. Agent fees top £130m alone. It’s more global than national: 14 of 20 Premier League clubs have a foreign owner. There’s cash for the grass roots, but not enough to compensate for the 37% cut to local authorities that provide the parks for children to kick balls about in. The FA is clearly not independent enough. Its income comes from the England team, which relies on Premier League players, and the FA Cup, which depends on top clubs appearing. Yet the FA has oversight of all football transactions and sets rules that teams run under. It feels like the FA fears biting the hand that feeds it. Ministers could help by creating a new football regulator that could patrol the beautiful game. It could be paid for by a levy, perhaps, on TV rights. Football needs fresh ideas, not just fresh headlines. | The Premier League dominates football. Its clubs will share a £5.1bn television deal over the next three seasons. Agent fees top £130m alone. It’s more global than national: 14 of 20 Premier League clubs have a foreign owner. There’s cash for the grass roots, but not enough to compensate for the 37% cut to local authorities that provide the parks for children to kick balls about in. The FA is clearly not independent enough. Its income comes from the England team, which relies on Premier League players, and the FA Cup, which depends on top clubs appearing. Yet the FA has oversight of all football transactions and sets rules that teams run under. It feels like the FA fears biting the hand that feeds it. Ministers could help by creating a new football regulator that could patrol the beautiful game. It could be paid for by a levy, perhaps, on TV rights. Football needs fresh ideas, not just fresh headlines. |