Uefa executive condemns English FA as the 'weakest' in Europe

Posted Wednesday, April 27, 2011 by theguardian.com

• William Gaillard hits out at power of the Premier League
• Sports minister also attacks football's governance

Uefa executive condemns English FA as the 'weakest' in Europe
Uefa's William Gaillard has criciticised the English FA as the 'weakest' in Europe.

William Gaillard, one of Uefa's most prominent executives, has branded the Football Association the "weakest" in Europe and stated that it should adopt the Dutch model of governance while appointing a technical director.

Gaillard, who is the chief adviser to Uefa's president, Michel Platini, was speaking before the parliamentary culture, media and sport committee, which is inquiring into football governance. He said: "There is no doubt that turf wars have damaged English football and the FA is probably in a weaker spot than any other FA in Europe – probably [as] the result of the overwhelming power of professional football especially as expressed by the Premier League and Football League.

"In other countries there is a more balanced situation. In most other countries the professional game has a minority position. English professional football has been enormously successful in producing revenues and building up the game and we have to be grateful to the Premier League and Football League for that. At the same time this has not resulted in a better situation for English football in general and performances of the national team have not been outstanding."

Gaillard believes Holland's emphasis on developing players' technical skills from an early age and allowing them a freedom to make mistakes could form the ideal template for English football to follow. "[It's] an excellent grassroots model," he said. "The FA should have a full-time technical director – that's what exists in most other good educational models in Europe."

Gaillard's claims were also echoed by Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, who reiterated his belief that football is the poorest run of the country's major sports. "The fact is when I looked at the corporate governance operations in sports, particularly the big five, it was noticeably worse than in any other sport. There are no independent nonexecutive directors [at the FA] despite the Burns review. Every single one of the directors is a white male and late middle-aged and there is no one who has played the game to any reasonable level and no women or anyone from the ethnic communities.

"For the 2018 World Cup bid £15m was spent and we succeeded solely in garnering one extra vote other than our own. The chairman of the Football Foundation [Clive Sherling] resigned in despair at the politicking going on around the game. The evidence is pretty clear."

Sherling, a businessman who was formerly chairman of the Football Licensing Authority, stepped down earlier this year after 18 months in the job.

Meanwhile, the committee member Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said the fact neither the FA nor the Football League knew who owned Leeds was a "fairly shambolic state of affairs".

The FA has sent a clarification to the committee admitting it does not know the identities of the people behind the three offshore trusts that own the Championship club.

Robertson agreed that the rules should be changed to force transparency of ownership. The minister said: "It's patently absurd that people save up every week to go through the turnstiles and cannot find out who owns the club.

"It's perfectly reasonable for fans to expect to know who the owners are of their football club and that's something that should be corrected sooner rather than later."