Stumbling from one crisis to the next

14 April 2012

Ever since the departure of former chief executive Graham Kelly in 1998 during the so-called cash-for-votes scandal, the Football Association has lurched from one crisis to another.

Every couple of years they lose an England manager, a chief executive or a chairman. The difference in the present crisis is that they could lose all three.

The first crisis in recent times came in the winter of 1998. Just 10 days before Christmas, the FA suddenly announced the departure of Kelly and chairman Keith Wiseman.

The bungling pair had offered the Welsh FA money in exchange for supporting Wiseman's desire to get the guaranteed British seat on FIFA's executive council.

When an invoice demanding £400,000 arrived from the Welsh FA, an inquiry held by current chairman Geoff Thompson signed the death warrant for Kelly and Wiseman.

Three months later Glenn Hoddle followed after giving an interview in which he appeared to suggest that disabled people were being punished for sins in a previous life.

By 2001, the FA had appointed their first foreign coach, in Sven-Goran Eriksson, who had rescued England from the shambles left behind by Kevin Keegan's ill-fated spell in charge of the national side. The chief executive was former advertising guru Adam Crozier, whose regime began brightly before the wheels fell off following his gamble to fund the rebuilding of Wembley, which caused a cash crisis at the FA.

The Premier League wanted Crozier out, and when he was defeated in the boardroom by the Premier League over how to run the FA, they got their way.

The present crisis may have been caused by a sex scandal, but it is hard to escape the feeling that the FA's attempts to deal with it have been shambolic in the extreme.

Not for the first time, they have showed how not to run English football.

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