Local councils, grassroots football and the TV money...

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The Local Government Association, in the guise of Cllr Ian Stephens, chair of the LGA's Culture, Tourism and Sport Board, is worrying about the state of 'grassroots football':

‘There is an ever-widening chasm between the grassroots game, which is being allowed to wither away by the football authorities through pitiful investment, and elite football.'

And there's no doubt that this comment responds to a popular perception about the game - that the huge sums in TV rights and sponsorships aren't trickling down to those grassroots with the result that England's national team is rubbish. As ever, I suspect this is a case of the LGA looking for a source of funding for its parks departments.

But first let's look at that withering grassroots in English football:

Over 7m people play football on a weekly basis and they are supported by 400,000 volunteers, 300,000 coaches and 27,000 referees who give up their time to keep the game going.

There are some issues - more adults (and a thriving market) now prefer to play 5-a-side football and there is the perennial problem of having enough qualified coaches and referees not to mention people to do the dull old job of collecting subs and playing fees, registering players, organising fixtures and ensuring that, come Sunday morning there's a game for the team to play.

The Football Association spends a lot of money (much of which comes from those TV rights and sponsorships) on supporting grassroots football - around £50 million every year directly into supporting and developing all that local club football with a further £50 million spent on other development programmes. On top of this is a similar amount invested by the Premier League - along with the FA through the Football Foundation plus supporting the community programmes of individual clubs. This latter activity plus investment in other community sport (and an overseas programme) will see some £138 million invested by the Premier League in community sport. In its total three-year programme the Premier League will spend over £200 million on the grassroots of football.

It may be the case that more could be spent but to suggest that the grassroots of English football are withering away is pretty much untrue. The truth is that more money is now spent on developing football than has ever been spent. Those glory days when West Ham won the world cup for England were not brought about by investment in grassroots football because the infrastructure was all in place - even the cubs and scouts had extensive and organised leagues or cup competition.

The English Schools Football Association (ECFA) reports that 6,432 teams were entered into its competitions - this includes boys, girls and mixed teams. To provide some context, there are around 24,000 maintained schools in England suggesting to me that the biggest change in English football since 1966 hasn't been the lack of support for the game from the top teams or the big leagues but rather the collapse of competitive school football.

The Liberal Democrats recently call for 5% of the money from the Premier League's TV deal to go into the 'grassroots'. The new deal - the biggest ever - is for £5.136 billion over three years. Just so we're clear, 5% of this is £256.8 million. Under the current smaller deal the Premier League will invest over £200 million in grassroots football, community sport and the development of local football infrastructure.

What we're seeing here from the LGA - pig ignorance aside - is a crass bid for the FA and the Premier League to give local councils money:

The LGA said if the money invested in local pitches was increased and administered by local councils, it could help councils build upon grassroots initiatives.

 

This isn't about grassroots football at all. It's about local council budget choices.

 

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Why the FA should leave FIFA

Much debate has followed from the latest round of corruption allegations directed at senior board members of football's governing body, FIFA. The boss, Sepp Blatter is blustering his way through the ensuing media furore:

Asked if bribery allegations against two of his most senior former allies, Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner, and continued questions over the probity of the Qatar 2022 bid constituted a crisis, Mr Blatter said: “What is a crisis? Football is not in a crisis. When you see the final of the Champions League then you must applaud. So we are not in a crisis, we are only in some difficulties.” 

Let's be clear about this - FIFA's owners (the various national football associations) are unwilling to act, to prevent bribery, to throw out corrupt officials and to deals with the games financial problems. This is because none of those national FA's are prepared to risk being outside the sty, away from the trough. And, of course, FIFA controls the World Cup.

However, there comes a time when tolerating corruption, bribery and malpractice simply to get the right to enter a competition ceases to be acceptable. And offering soft challenges, threatening to abstain and calling for delays doesn't cut the mustard - the fat cats running FIFA will simply ignore the FA. The only lever is for the FA (ideally along with a couple of like-minded associations) to inform Blatter that they will be withdrawing from FIFA until such a time as the organisation addresses corruption and reforms its governance.

What I do know is that we will not get a reform of FIFA so long as the criticisms of the FA and others can be ignored by FIFA's executives. Pulling out might be painful in the short run but may prove the only way to force FIFA's hand. Right now Sepp Blatter can ride out the criticism because it can't really damage FIFA sufficiently to require substantive governance changes. And in a few weeks time all the press will have wandered off to the next story leaving FIFA to wallow happily in its sty once again.

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Football needs to show show leadership on gay players & homophobia

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It was with a certain degree of gobsmacked incredulity that I listened to Gordon Taylor, Chief Executive of the footballers trade union, speaking about gay footballers – or rather trying to brush away the fact that there aren’t any openly gay footballers at the top level. Indeed were Taylor’s response to questions on the subject given in response to, let’s say, racism in top level sport we would face a huge outcry. Frankly, I’m amazed that we still tolerate the FA, Premier League and the PFA behaving like the three wise monkeys on this subject.

Here’s a bit of what Taylor said:

"It's not a straightforward issue and it would be unfair to ask an individual player to back a campaign like this in case they got targeted by football crowds,"

In his interview Taylor also cited the problems in the Church – as if they are in any way either relevant or comparable!

Sorry, Gordon, it is a straightforward issue – in any other business such discrimination would not be tolerated. I do not believe that there are no gay players in the premier league. I’m sure that the football authorities know there are gay players. I’m sure the players know. The media know for sure.

Anti-gay sentiment and abuse should be dealt with in exactly the same way and racist abuse. Through sanctions on clubs, exclusion of fans and the application of the law. There was a time when many clubs were reluctant to hire black players – that has changed. Should we not be looking to drive the same change for gay players too?

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