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What a depressing list of non football men.Surely we need a true football man in charge,an ex player say.But to suggest an Alan Sugar character just makes my blood run cold.The future seems to be getting bleaker by the week for English football.

David Dein if far from the right man to put in charge of football in this country. He stood at a council meeting in Hammersmith and declared that there was no problem with the proposed Fulham Park Rangers debacle and that it was acceptable for London's oldest football club to dissapear. Thankfully due to the support of real footballing people, the Fulham 2000 campaign and simple common sense it didn't happen. After the rise through the lower divisions, promotion to the Premier League and thus far 10 consecutive years in the top flight Mr Dein couldn't have been more wrong. Yes the FA needs a football man at the top, Mr Dein is no football man he is a self promoting businessman who is in it for what he, and not the game, can get out of it.

You state that hiring a first rate chairman will only mask the second rate structure. Wouldn't a first rate chairman be able to change a second rate structure?

i could be chairman of the FA, doesn't sound like a very hard job..
at least i would add some english values to our ever fading league!

good blog though

the problem is the fact that the new guy is going to be from the football "family" the idea of an independent chairman is a good idea because you need someone from business or politics to come in and reform the FA and only that will able to happend if the two independent members of the board are also inplace at the same time meaning that any group within borad like the non league, football league or the priemer league can out vote each other with the support of the three independent members.

Even if the newspaper hacks had not got to treesman he was isolated by the fact that he was alone without any independent members that burns report had said was the best idea to support him.

Would you not argue that FIFA needs restructuring before the FA does?

Have a read of 'Will FIFA change because of the English reaction?'

It all sounds like much more of the same old. Select someone from within, in order to appease old friends, proposed changes will become more and more diluted into nothingness as they always have been, or conversely, to consolidate the new person's power base and underwrite their agenda, political posturing and old scores being settled will bog the FA down with infighting.

Bring someone in from the outside, and the sacred cows will drag their feet on everything. It's a good argument for dictatorship and a woman.

What the FA doesn't need, but I fear we will once more end up with, is the millstone around our country's neck of some fuddy duddy, completely inept Lord slapping some other fuddy duddy inept Lord on the back telling him how brilliant he is as they are wined and dined around the country for 5 years after they avoided needing to take action by calling for a 5 year inquiry that puts the damp squib on any urgency and enthusiasm, and where the final report stays at the bottom of the in-tray.

Not saying he is the right man, especially for the work on the youth devlopment side of things that I think is required, but we need someone of Lord Sugar's ilk. Someone who is proactive, not your average fuddy duddy Lord, someone who won't stand for any nonsense.

For all the ugliness, at least Sepp Blatter is getting things done. We're still having a conflab over a mug of tea by the filing cabinets before getting down to a day's work. When you look at the production line, is the FA really any more failing than the LTA? The archaism of these institutions represents a lot of what is good about our country, but I'm afraid it's not doing us a lot of good on the competitive front.

I believe the commercial success of the EPL as a product sold around the world has been achieved at a terrible high price in terms of England’s national team and our national game. I was disappointed by the England displays before and during the World Cup in South Africa. I think the English FA should all resign and start over with a new manager.
I would like to see the re-start of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ International Championship series, maybe every other year at the end of the season, in the years when there are no World Cup and no Euros, as I believe this would be one competition that England may stand a chance of winning in the next decade.
It embarrasses me to say this as someone with dual citizenship, as I am English by birth and also Canadian by choice. It should embarrass the FA to be so incompetent. Someone has to admit it; the emperor has no clothes.

There are many examples in business where companies needing a change of direction appoint a Chairman or President from outside their industry because the person brings a particular skill-set to the table. This usually works well if the person heads a team of executives with a good blend of appropriate skills and experience.
There are many examples in football where clubs needing a change of direction appoint an experienced former player based solely on their playing success. There are many examples (too numerous to list here) where this does not work out, as playing success does not guarantee managerial success.

What an embarrassing indictment on the nature of British/English society that there are no candidates who have both football credibility and who also wouldn't be out of their depth in a leadership position of a major organisation.
This would be a very unlikely occurence in just about any other ,er, mature country

Personally, I'd rather have a chairman who was strong enough to not so much build bridges with Fifa as lead the international campaign to completely restructure that 'Fiefadom' run by the septic head of the organisation.

Nothing will change on the international scene whilst Blatter is in charge and England needs to do everything in their powers to have him replaced with immediate effect for the wellbeing of global football. The president (the term itself is laughable) of any other commercial operation who banned enabling technology, allowed fraudulent directors to continue in office and ran the operation in such an autocratic and incompetent manner would have been removed from office years ago.

The FA should put all the talents they had behind the 2018 bid towards another equally important campaign - getting Blatter out. Nothing else they do can compare to the importance of that task and all energies should be channelled in that direction if English football is to have a voice again at the global table.

"At 10:18pm on 10 Dec 2010, Junkyard wrote:
You state that hiring a first rate chairman will only mask the second rate structure. Wouldn't a first rate chairman be able to change a second rate structure?"

Not really. The chairman would be too high up, and also outnumbered. That kind of structural change can only be implemented from within the structure, not from the top down (see almost any public sector organisation or large company).

I didn't know Phil Gartside is in charge of the committee to pick the new guy. That's ruined my morning already. This is the guy who wants to turn the top two divisions in England into a closed shop, basically so that his friends who are chairmen of Championship sides don't have to run the financial risk of getting relegated to League One. OK, that's a little harsh, but I really don't rate the guy.

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I think some of the comments tend to forget that the new chairman can and must change FA not FIFA.

Given what successes he achieved at Arsenal and at the PL Dein is far the best candidate. Please dont forget that in recent years Arsenal became the youngest team (and getting younger) and many talented youngsters was built in the team (plus many are there NOT playing at Arsenal but in the PL). Although this fact is hugely connected to Wenger he was hired by and worked with Dein. All in all the concept of sexy football with young people was shared by both.

Dein cannot be there for more then 3 years he will be able to start the necessary changes (maybe even get 2 additional years to finish) but the task is somehow resembles to that of at Arsenal. Which means he already has the experience. He maybe has his own way but all great reformers had their own otherwise they wouldn't have succeeded. Even FIFA knows and respects him simply for what he achieved. Add to this that he was polite enough not to say any offesive words vs FIFA (or anybody) before or after Russia received the WC. He is smart enugh as well.

I think the FA would make a huge mistake not using his talent.

I dont think the new Chairman should bother with the fifa organisation , just concentrate on improving Junior coaching therby improving Englands chances of success in the future. Once Englands team are the best in the world again everything else will fall into place Fifa will be begging us to host the world cup,

English football has failed to evolve for decade after decade whilst many many other countries have caught up and, indeed, overtaken.
Responsibility for this must rest with the English FA who time after time procastinate and invariably take the wrong turning at each junction (in recent times, for example, Burton, Wembley, Premier league, 39th game, Roots'n' branches, Triesy, organising a 2018 host bid when 'intelligence' said it was a non-starter, the 3 grovelling Daves of Zurich, level of Capello's pay and fresh contract .....)
One has the impression of the FA blazers being little more than a dining club, still chuntering how they first organised Association Football and patting each other on the back re 1966.
What astonishes me is the total lack of transparency and accountability of the FA, and how they're given such an easy ride (by the media and football fans) and invariably manage to bury their heads in the sand until the next time.
The longer 'English football' allows this to continue the more difficult it will become to remedy; the dearth of candidates for chairman is hardly surprising.
Who cares ? Not many it seems.
Why don't you, David Bond, in your role as ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Sports Editor, make a name for yourself as the person who as a consequence of exposing the FA paved the way for an overdue re-building of football in England ?
(( Then, and not before, start tackling FIFA from within..........))
[[[ ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Internationals ? A big big backward step ....... so await an announcement in 2011 ]]]

As with most things in life 'timing is everything' and just as Panorama's decision to air a mud-slinging programme at Fifa days before they made a crucial vote regarding our WC bid was ill judged, seemingly the F.A's decision to appoint a new chairman AFTER the vote seems equally ridiculous.

If Dein was in place a few months before the vote in Zurich he may have swung more power and influence, but now apart from over seeing the introduction of any future England manager (Arsene Wenger anyone?) and the building of St. George's Park...what will be his role be? Still the best choice though and he can scrap the pointless ageist law whilst he's at it!

First thing to say is: you can try and change FIFA, UEFA all you like, but if you don't produce a large number of high quality youngsters, you won't ever win tournaments. There's nothing in the way football is organised in England to stop that happening at U17 and U19 level.

If you get a situation where brilliant U19 English lads can't get into teams, then sure you need to reform the English game. But what's actually most needed is the wisdom to pick the right clubs from 18 to 22 to maximise the development of your talent. If you do that, you'll earn lots in your career. Too many go for the big money move too young and don't progress. That's an error of players, parents, agents, clubs and the FA.

Only those in football will truly know where we stand as regards U9, U11, U13 and U15 coaches compared to, say, Spain, Holland, Germany, Brazil or Portugal. But if I were FA chairman, I'd set a non-negotiable target of England's youth coaches being, in terms of depth and excellence, in the top 4 countries in the world by 2020.

The key issue is how that is done and how you co-ordinate it. That's the hardest decision in English football, with so many vested interests and competing claims.

Particularly as there are many who want international football to be completely abandoned............

I doubt 2011 will be a happy year for the FA
First they are still in massive debts

They have got the UEFA Champions League Final at Wembley in 2011
But that means all the championship play-off matches will be moving to another stadium and will not be played at Wembley and FA will lose loads of valuable revenue due to the UEFA rules that states no matches can be played at the stadium 2 weeks before the Champions League Final at that stadium

I think the play-off matches have been moved to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff

FA need to sort out their internal problems next year
FA need to stop complaining to FIFA that they did not get to host 2018 World Cup

After England's World Cup exit we had Chris Waddle's rant about the state of the game in England, how the FA were doing nothing to improve things and he seemed to get a good deal of support, at least in the papers/websites I read.

I'm just going to raise a couple of points in their defence, from comparing the case of England with that of Spain.

Firstly, I would suggest that the failings of the national team should lie as much with the clubs as the FA. The success of Spain has been built largely on the success of one club's academy in developing players, Barcelona and their academy La Masía. Nine of Spain's World Cup winning squad came from La Masía, and then there is Messi. The formation of La Masía was not due to some intervention of the Spanish FA, but rather from a club's desire to develop their own players and it just happens that with this generation of players they are doing things that much better than all their rivals. Why are the top clubs in England failing to reach the same level of success? It is as much a question for the clubs as it is for the FA.

In defending the clubs you might argue that by the time kids are entering the academies it is already too late, the technical skills, the speed of thought displayed by players like Xavi and Iniesta has been ignored from the earlier stages in favour of physicality, you don't have to look for the right pass when the longest one will do.

Here I would suggest that rather than an interfering FA, it is through the 'good fortune' of not playing on grass pitches that Spain has had success in developing players with greater technical ability. Through most of the country grass pitches are an impossibility, I work in a Spanish University where even the rugby teams play their matches on astro turf pitches. My flat overlooks a primary school where each Saturday morning the kids are playing their matches on a concrete pitch, they play Futbol Sala, the ball runs true and quick across the ground, there is almost never time to recover from a bad first touch and they quickly adapt to the environment. I play games against 20 year old students and 50 year old professors and if I compare the games to those I used to play in a University in England it seems a completely different sport, tiki-taka is almost second nature.

I'm not trying to suggest that we should abandon using grass pitches and that everyone should be playing futbol sala, just that the success or failure of a footballing nation is not necessarily the fault of an FA, but more just a combination of things coming together at the right moment. Today top flight clubs across Europe play on perfect pitches all year round, on the pitches of the 80s tiki-taka football just wouldn't work, but it does today and Spain were ideally placed to take advantage.

The FA Chairman should like a Job I could do....do we really need 'big hitters' who are likely to muck it up and make no changes or scared to make the changes.
I would turn the place around, get split sponsorship of the England team...lets n forget, the FA fudged up its relationship with Nationwide because it felt it could get a bigger sponsor after the World Cup......erm...yeah....we did badly and no-one wanted it.
I would draw in small companies for pennies and spilt sponsorship of the Team and we all know maximium expsoure can help.
Plus, I would sort out the TV Contracts, making sure all competitions are shown and split across the TV network...having them all placed on 1 Channel isnt the way forward and consigned to History with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, ITV, Ch4, Ch5, Sky and now ESPN so really make sure all TV Stations get something and again pennies first for them which can be built with again exposure being the main priority.
We need the FA top brass to be Football fans and I can asure you, my application will be in the Post on the way to Wembley Stadium.

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