The FA is being held back by elderly white men. So say David Bernstein, David Davies, Greg Dyke, Alex Horne and David Triesman, all of whom happen to be elderly white men and former FA suits. Now they want parliament to reform it. Oh great. The prime minister before the current one couldn’t even remember the team he supported so that augurs well.
I have some experience of the Football Association, certainly at a local level, and I worked closely with my fellow elderly white men. The ones I worked with were almost entirely volunteers, too, running all levels of football across the country. Women, if there were any, had their own jobs too. Things like staffing (not manning!) the bar, making tea and sometimes washing the kit. I am not sure things have changed that much since I was involved but I do know that within football evolution is a slow process, as it is in the real world.
I did bump into the occasional black or Asian person as well as women club secretaries. Whilst it would have been great to have seen many more, the reality is that if it wasn’t for the elderly white men, football would fold. However, none of this should be seen as an attempt to leave things like they are. It isn’t.
When I was a child, footballers were white. So were crowds. Footballers are no longer purely white, but crowds have barely changed. There are hardly any black managers or coaches. It seems so wrong and it is.
The elderly white men speaking out, effectively against themselves, have a point though and football needs to change. But I am loathe to throw out the baby with the bath water. The last thing we want to do is somehow blame them for the variety of problems in our national game. Perhaps they help sustain the problems, but they also sustain the game. As we change, as we speed up evolution, we should remember that age, wisdom and experience are positives, not negatives. Also, there is much to be said for old fashioned values.
Football was, but is no longer, the game of the working man. Local football leagues are dying as participation levels fall, mediocre players became multimillionaires and the whole thing revolves around the Premier League, the ultimate cash cow where the team that finishes last “earns” £100 million.
I would say that the game is being held back by the Premier League, by Sky, by money, by foreign owners. In other words, the Thatcherisation of football.
There’s a lot to be said for change but there’s also a lot to be said for utilising the skills of everyone who has something to contribute. Including elderly white men.
