David Conn: FA's blazers fight Premiership takeover

A week of intense anticipation, of Giggs v Neville, Ferdinand returning, Sven's latest selection headache, and England finally face Wales in their World Cup qualifier today. Less frenzied, altogether stealthier, but as fierce in its way, a battle is rumbling over the soul and control of English football itself, with the future of the England team at stake.

After the Football Association's howling embarrassments of August and the resignations of the chief executive, Mark Palios, and the director of communications, Colin Gibson, Premier League voices suddenly filled the void, suggesting that the FA Cup and England team, run by the FA for 130 years, should in future be controlled by the clubs.

Rupert Lowe, the Southampton chairman and a Premier League representative on the FA's main board, spoke for a strong strand of Premiership thinking when he said the FA should concentrate on "being in charge of the rules and regulations and the grassroots and should avoid getting into other things."

The Premiership denies publicly that it wants to get its hands on these lucrative FA "properties": "We're not interested in controlling the FA Cup or the England team," a spokesman said. "We're committed to sharing money generated by the FA 50-50 with the grassroots." However, many in the game do believe there continues to be a campaign for greater control.

This latest power struggle follows more than 20 years in which the top clubs have vastly increased their share of football's wealth. While Football League clubs and the grassroots have called for more equal distribution of the television billions, the elite clubs have long been frustrated that they do not have an even bigger share. This includes control of the FA Cup, which, they argue, attracts TV money because of their participation, and the England team, which relies on Premiership players.

The FA, football's governing body, controls the TV deals and distributes the money, as well as being responsible for football's rules and regulations, a function in which it has been lax in recent times.

Bitter as this conflict is, none of this has anything to do with two middle-aged men having affairs with the same FA secretary. However, in the vacuum following that fiasco, the cry has gone up for a wholesale "structural review" of the FA, putting the whole organisation up for grabs.

Many in the "National Game", the million people who actually play football and whose representatives still control the FA via its' Council, denounce the moves as opportunism. While the three lions have not exactly roared, the much-derided old men in blazers have stirred themselves a little.

Roger Burden, the National Game chairman, wrote to all the Council's National Game representatives, promising to defend the FA robustly. "The Football Association has responsibility for governing and developing the game," he wrote, "and it does not feel right to abdicate a large part of its responsibility (e.g. the revenue, or our national team) to another body.

"I can assure you that [the National Game representatives] will stay resolute and ensure that there is no 'steamrollering' of views from other sections of the game."

Inside the FA's Soho Square headquarters, however, is where the real power-broking will happen. The wranglings have now settled into micro-politics, whereby months customarily pass in seeming mind-numbing tedium, then some important outcome is suddenly announced. A structural review of the FA's constitution looks innocent enough and necessary, but few believe it will lead to a stronger governing body, which can stand up to the rich clubs for the good of all in the game.

Reform is urgently needed; the 92-member Council includes delegates from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Army, Air Force, Navy and independent schools but no supporters, players, managers, women or black faces. The big clubs have a point about their value to the FA Cup and their players' presence in the England team, but the FA has not been able to balance their interests with the wider game, having backed the First Division clubs' breakaway to form the Premier League in 1992.

Since then, the FA has ceded more power to the Premier League clubs, which has not stopped them pushing. Rows have persisted over the FA Cup and England team, coming to a head in the ousting of Adam Crozier as the FA's chief executive in October 2002.

Crozier was resisting the establishment of a Professional Game Board as a conduit for top clubs' influence when, in early October 2002, he received a draft contract from the Premier League which proposed giving them much greater commercial control over the FA Cup and England fixtures, in return for agreeing to play in the FA Cup for five years. The threat that the big clubs might withdraw from the FA Cup has been continuously aired in these rows. In his covering letter, the Premier League chairman, Dave Richards, said its representatives "have a mandate to go further should we not reach our objectives."

Many believe that is what they are attempting to do now. The professional representatives on the FA Board did not want to appoint a chief executive to replace Palios, preferring to await the outcome of the structural review. However, Peter Heard, the Colchester chairman, is understood to have broken ranks and voted with the six amateur representatives to recruit somebody actually to run the organisation. It is amazing that anybody still fancies the job, but there are said to be 10 candidates on the FA's list.

An independent chairman is to be appointed to head the structural review, and there the battle over the future will be joined. Sepp Blatter, the president of the world governing body, Fifa, last week condemned as "malign," and "unsavoury" the bids for power by rich European clubs, drawing attention to the manoeuvrings here.

"For wealthy clubs to try to emasculate the international game by seizing control of a national football association, that some fear they are trying to do in England, is plain unacceptable," Blatter said. "It is an attempt to undermine the very foundation of what any such association is all about."

The Premiership denies that, saying it only wants a better-run FA, but many no longer believe them. Few observers believe the old Council members have the guts or guile to emerge with a strong, modern, independent FA. Yet if those worthy men are ever to prove they are not in it, as many suspect, for the free tickets they'll be enjoying in the plum seats at Old Trafford today, but stand for the overall welfare of the sport in the age of plcs, now is the time for them to show it.

David Conn's new book, 'The Beautiful Game? Searching for the Soul of Football', is published by Yellow Jersey Press, priced £12.

Twenty years of hurt steps to Premier League control

From the start of the Football League home clubs shared gate money with away clubs, and when TV coverage began in 1965 the money was spread equally throughout the 92 clubs.

1981 First threat of "Superleague" breakaway, after meeting of First Division clubs at Goodison Park.

1983 Gate-sharing scrapped. Home sides keep all gate money.

1985 "Heathrow Agreement" - big clubs given more voting power and 50 per cent of TV money; 25 per cent goes to Second Division clubs, 25 per cent to Third and Fourth.

1988 TV deal with Greg Dyke of ITV favours the top clubs.

1990 Football League publishes One Game One Team One Voice, proposing joint board with the Football Association.

1991 FA rejects joint board. Releases Blueprint for the Future of Football, supporting First Division clubs' breakaway.

1992 Premier League launch; £305m deal with Sky and BBC. No sharing with Football League.

1997 Premiership renews deal with Sky: £704m for four years.

1998 FA chief executive Graham Kelly resigns.

1999 Premier League agrees to pay five per cent of next TV deal to grassroots via the Football Foundation. FA sets up joint board: four Premier League representatives, two Football League, six from amateur game.

2000 Adam Crozier appointed chief executive, his vision for the FA: "To use the power of football to build a better future."

2001 £1.6bn TV deal for Premiership.

2002 Crozier resigns after battle with Premier League over commercial control of England team and FA Cup, and a proposed Professional Game Board.

2003 Professional Game Board set up. Mark Palios appointed chief executive of the FA.

2004 £1.1bn TV deal for Premiership. Palios resigns after "Faria-Gate". Premier League representatives talk about controlling FA Cup and England team. "Structural Review" of the FA announced.