Crozier walks after being hung out to dry by Thompson

If anybody still harboured any doubt that the men who run football clubs are motivated by naked self-interest, their illusions should have been dispelled by yesterday's forced resignation of Adam Crozier.

The FA's chief executive had to go because he put the game first. Sadly Geoff Thompson was not so principled. The FA's first salaried chairman should have given Crozier his backing in his fight against the vested interests of the Premiership barons. Instead he confirmed the impression that he is a weak man more interested in the prestige and perks of the job than his responsibilities to the game. Needing the backing of the Premier League to secure his re-election next year, he hung his chief executive out to dry.

As Thompson's statement, only partially smudged by crocodile tears, underlined, Crozier was a raging success at his job. Crozier, he said, "led the transformation of the FA into a successful, modern organisation, which I know is now respected throughout the world in sport and in business. He has surpassed all our expectations."

These included building on the work of David Davies and Frank Pattison to streamline the organisation, working with other eager recruits from industry, like Paul Barber, to massively increase revenue, fulfiling Howard Wilkinson's vision of a National Football Centre, resolving the Wembley fiasco and appointing Sven Goran Eriksson. Not bad for 34 months' work. Obviously he had to go.

As one FA insider said: "It was about power and money. There are people in the Premier League who wanted more of both. Crozier was seen as the block."

There was also a personality clash. Crozier is no political ingenue but he mis-judged the need to massage egos. He preferred to spend weekends with his family rather than back-slapping in club boardrooms. This would have been less of a problem if his management style was consensual. Instead it was either dynamic, or autocratic, depending on your point of view.

The chairmen may act this way at their own clubs but they did not like being on the receiving end, especially when Crozier was not only much younger than most of them but also an employee.

This mattered little while the Sky-fuelled gravy train was at full speed. The collapsing value of football rights changed the landscape. The clubs, looking for more income streams, realised the newly-profitable FA had become a commercial rival. And not only was the FA competing for the same sponsors, it was using the chairmen's players, the Beckhams, Owens and Campbells, to do so.

The first sally was an attempt to force the FA to pay players' wages when on international duty. Backed by the sport's world governing body, Fifa, which knows few countries can afford to do so [imagine the impoverished Welsh FA paying Ryan Giggs' salary], the FA resisted. It pointed out that not only does English international success provide a financial lift for the game in general, as a non-profit body it ploughs its surplus income into the sport.

Half of that is redistributed to the professional game. The clubs have thus moved on to demand the creation of a Professional Game Board to control its distribution. Crozier resisted, so the Premier League got to work launching a smear campaign to partial media interests.

Small issues – such as the timing of the release of a Mori poll – were inflated into large ones and the argument became overheated. Some of the threats were daft. It has been suggested the FA Cup could be targeted; that clubs could refuse to host internationals; that England would be denied players. Few clubs would dare withdraw from the FA Cup. It offers significant financial rewards and is beloved by fans and players alike. Clubs are queueing up to host internationals and, even if the Premiership stood firm, the FA could use grounds like Molineux and the Walkers Stadium. Fifa would back England in any dispute over the availability of players.

Ludicrously, the FA has even been criticised for having £27m reserves in the bank. Presumably the leading figures marshalled against Crozier, like the Chelsea chairman Ken Bates, Peter Ridsdale, the chairman of Leeds, and David Richards, the former chairman of Sheffield Wednesday now chairing the Premiership, would prefer the FA, like their clubs, to be massively in hock to the banks. One Premiership representative on the FA Board, John Elsom, no longer even has a club, the administrators having taken over Leicester City.

Crozier's estimated £600,000-plus salary and the spiralling costs of the FA were also criticised. The figures are high but not in context. The Premier League is a far smaller operation but its chief executive, Richard Scudamore, receives a similar wage while its costs, like that at most clubs, have also boomed. Income is also up everywhere but the clubs squander their cash on wages, transfers and agents.

That is not to say the FA is perfect. There are valid criticisms to be made of its stewardship. Its reluctance to act when clubs such as Brighton and York are imperilled by their owners is disgraceful and few parks footballers have benefited from the much-heralded grass-roots investment. Crozier appeared to do little more than pay lip service to both issues but it is impossible to imagine either aspect will be improved by increasing the power of the Premiership.

The élite will now get the PGB and, with it, more money and power. As Keith Harris said, when he left the post of Football League chairman, "the lunatics are back in charge of the asylum".

Crozier fact file

Born: Scotland, 26 January 1964.

Education: Heriot-Watt University (BA, Business Organisation).

Career: 1984-86: Pedigree Pet Foods, Mars (UK). 1986-88: The Daily Telegraph. 1988-99: Saatchi & Saatchi (director, 1990; media director, 1992; vice-chairman, 1994; chief executive, 1995). 2000-2002: Football Association chief executive.

* Joined FA in January 2000 to take up the post of chief executive, an offer he described as "irresistible". He moved from Saatchi and Saatchi, where he had held the position of joint chief executive since 1994 and in 1990, at the age of 26, became the company's youngest-ever board director.

* Crozier's brief of leading the FA into the 21st century saw him launch a period of fundamental change within the organisation, with a three-year strategic plan "to use the power of football to build a better future" published in March 2000.

* He pushed to replace the FA's 91-strong Board with a 12-member body, a move which would later see him criticised by the likes of Chelsea chairman Ken Bates for his alleged autocratic style of management.

* Just months into his new job, during a speech at Lancing College Old Boys' annual dinner, Crozier claimed a Liverpool player had written a cheque for £80,000 to miss training and that £7m of the £9m paid by Aston Villa for their South American striker Juan Pablo Angel had finished up in the pockets of agents.

* Instrumental in the appointment of Sven Goran Eriksson as England's first foreign coach. The move was widely condemned, but the Swede's record in guiding England to the 2002 World Cup finals shows it was a masterstroke.

* Threw his weight behind the failed bid to secure the 2006 World Cup for England, although finally managed to see the building work on the new Wembley Stadium begin just a few weeks before his departure.

* Crozier oversaw the FA's move of its headquarters from its traditional home at Lancaster Gate to modern offices at Soho Square.

* In his final weeks, Crozier came under pressure amid a dispute between the Premier League and the FA over the governing body's new commercial strategy and his own perceived lack of consultation with his Board.