British government set to pull up FA on reforms
Football body could be barred from bidding for international events
London: England could be blocked from hosting future World Cups, European Championships and Champions League finals if the Football Association continues to resist reform, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
The nuclear option of the government refusing to sanction the FA hosting major international competitions is being actively discussed as part of efforts to force it to modernise. Culture secretary John Whittingdale announced at last week’s ‘Telegraph Business of Sport’ conference that the FA would be stripped of the 30 million pounds (Dh158.16 million) of public money it is given every four years unless its council scrapped its “outdated” governance structure.
That was after Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, abandoned plans to hold a vote this summer on radical changes to the make-up of its council amid widespread resistance to the proposals. The changes included making the body, which has only six female and four ethnic-minority members out of 123, more representative and accountable.
The government has commissioned UK Sport and Sport England to devise a new governance code for all national governing bodies (NGBs) that receive taxpayers’ money, which will include targets on diversity and term limits. Whittingdale confirmed the code would be launched later this year and that any NGB which failed to comply with it would have funding withdrawn. They could also be blocked from bidding for major events which require Government money and support.
For the FA, that would mean any Fifa or Uefa events in which lucrative tax breaks are a condition of a country being selected to host them. They include the World Cup, Euros and finals of the Champions and Europe Leagues. The FA lifted its self-imposed embargo on bidding for the World Cup following Gianni Infantino’s election as president of Fifa in February, having refused to stage its tournaments towards the end of Sepp Blatter’s disgraced regime.
Dyke even said England could attempt to host the 2030 event, with the FA was already considering a bid for Euro 2028. The government had to agree tax breaks for Wembley to be chosen to host the semi-finals and final of Euro 2020 – which are not thought to be under threat.
It did the same when the national stadium staged the 2011 and 2013 Champions League finals. Dyke wrote to FA councillors just over a week ago warning of the threat of government intervention over its refusal to reform. He is the latest FA chairman to fail in his bid to modernise the decision-making body, which has resisted threats from a succession of sports ministers and culture secretaries since Lord Burns recommended sweeping changes a decade ago.
With Whittingdale having confirmed he would write to the FA warning of the loss of pounds 30 million, it would be highly unlikely for the Government to pull the plug on funding and still support a World Cup bid. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the FA both declined to comment.
