David Conn: Wednesday a fading force while Richards' power grows

Former chairman of relegated club has risen to rarefied heights as his influence within game continues to expand

A dismal 1-1 draw at Brighton last Saturday finally consigned Sheffield Wednesday to where they have been heading all season: the Second Division, an experience described by one supporter as "like being on death row and finding out you're not getting a reprieve". Yet it was striking that many fans turned not on the manager, Chris Turner, or Wednesday's board, but on the former chairman, Dave Richards, who resigned in February 2000, when the team were on the brink of the drop to the First Division, to take up a paid post as the chairman of the Premier League.

Laden with debts approaching £25m and crippled until recently by expensive players' contracts hung over from their Premier League days, Wednesday have slid two divisions below the top flight for only the second time in their history, while Richards has continued to occupy the Premiership's top job – part-time, for which he was paid £135,000 last year. He is now a main board director of the Football Association, wielding great influence in the vacuum left by the departure of the chief executive Adam Crozier. He is also the chairman of the FA's new professional game board whose establishment Crozier opposed, and, since February, the chairman of the Football Foundation, the charitable body dedicated to rebuilding the game's dilapidated grass-roots. While his former club have sunk, Richards has become one of the game's most powerful bureaucrats.

This week the Wednesday Independent Supporters' Association accused Richards of leaving others to "sort out the mess of his stewardship", when, after early, relatively successful years, a £15.6m investment from a venture capital firm, Charterhouse, was mostly frittered away on poor signings. Their relegation season, 1999-2000, included a humiliating 8-0 defeat at Newcastle. "The final insult," WISA said, "is that his football career has been left uninterrupted, whilst ours has been a constant fight against relegation."

Nationally, others are becoming increasingly concerned about one man holding so many senior posts across football's organisations, fearing that the Premier League, sitting on the vast bulk of the money, is cementing its hold on the running of the game. Steven Powell, the development officer of the Football Supporters' Federation, said: "There is a concentration of power in the hands of the game's ever-richer élite. Dave Richards' multiplying appointments must bring worries about potential conflicts of interest."

The FA, whose role is to govern in the interests of all football, is run by representatives across football so potential conflicts of interest are almost part of the system. The old, flawed body is in crisis, with Crozier gone and a wide-ranging review under way to find cuts in the budget. Last week, six staff were made redundant, and there is talk of 20 per-cent staff cuts in all departments, which could mean 60 jobs lost when the slashing and burning is over. Richards, according to the Premier League itself, and Ken Bates, the Chelsea chairman who supported his chairmanship, has been centrally involved in the review, as a main board FA director.

The FA's main board is meant to be balanced, incorporating six members from the semi-professional and amateur national game, four from the Premier League and two from the Football League. But FA insiders say that the Premier League in practice calls the shots, particularly since the exit of Crozier, who battled the clubs' increasing influence. The national game relies on the Premier League for funding, in the shape of five per cent of the television money which the Premiership gives to the Football Foundation. Indeed, the FA itself relies for its revenue on the participation of the glamour clubs and their players in the FA Cup and England team.

With many Premier League clubs in debt and facing an uncertain financial future, there is pressure on the FA on two fronts. Recently, David Dein of Arsenal aired the suggestion that the FA should pay clubs for their players to play for England. Dein is himself one of the FA's main board directors, so it is difficult to see how, in that capacity, he could deal with the call he made while wearing his Arsenal hat.

The other area is the FA Cup money, which amounts to about £26m, including £265,000 to every club featured in live televised ties between the third and sixth rounds. Prize-money amounting to over £12m is also paid to the winners of every round. As the prizes increase every round, the big clubs garner most of the money. The £2m jackpot for winning the Cup will this season be contested by Arsenal and Southampton. Both these clubs have a representative on the FA main board.

With the FA having to make cuts to its budget to pay for the £156m needed up front for Wembley, the £26m being handed out in the FA Cup, mostly to big clubs, would be an obvious area for economies. But inside sources say that money has been placed off limits, with the threat in the air that the Premier League clubs could pull out of the FA Cup if the money was reduced. So, instead of the FA being able to act independently and make relatively small savings in prize-money and TV appearance fees, 60 people stand to lose their jobs.

The Football Trust always had an independent chairman, the former Tory minister Lord Aberdare. When the Football Foundation replaced the Trust, Tom Pendry, a former Labour shadow sports minister, became chairman. Two months ago, the Foundation announced that Pendry, his three years up, had been shuffled upstairs to become president, and the new chairman is Dave Richards.

The Foundation is funded predominantly by the Premier League, money which is matched by the FA and the Government. Only the Premiership is up to date with payments this year. The current agreement runs out next year, and the organisation needs to secure renewed funding from these bodies. Richards, again, is on both sides of that debate. Already, there is pressure from some Premier League club chairmen for the funding to the Foundation to be cut, because the next TV deal is expected to be substantially less than the current bonanza. It is difficult to see how Richards, as the Foundation's chairman, can argue his corner robustly with the chairman of the Premier League – himself.

But a Premier League spokesman put the opposite case, saying Richards is a "passionate supporter of the grass roots", who has backed the Foundation from the beginning, and is the ideal person to chair it. "It makes sense to have a representative of one of the funders in the chair, and Dave Richards is personally hugely committed to it and will make sure its funding is protected."

Many in football are dumbfounded not only by Mr Richards' serial chairmanships, but his qualifications for bestriding such rarefied heights. He became a director of Sheffield Wednesday in October 1989, just after the Hillsborough disaster, then the chairman in March 1990. Wednesday won the League Cup in 1991 and stayed in the Premier League, but the finances curdled in 1997, and Richards went on to become the paid Premier League chairman three months before Wednesday were relegated.

In his business career, Richards was a director of an engineering company, Bimec Water and Waste Treatment plc, until March 1993, then bought out its subsidiary, Three Star Engineering, in 1994. Bimec Water and Waste went into administrative receivership and has been dissolved. Three Star did well for a while, then struggled. Richards made redundancies in January and July 2000, then, in July 2001, Three Star went into administrative receivership. Three other companies he has been associated with have been dissolved.

In February 2001, Richards set up a company, Call Excel, to operate as a telephone call centre, but, according to its accounts, in November, just nine months later: "Due to mounting losses, it ceased to trade." In September 2001, he formed a printing business, Holmecroft Ltd, which in its first year lost £11,000.

Besides his football directorships, Richards holds office at Radio Hallam in Sheffield and Sheffield University's sports medicine facility. The only other company not dissolved or in administrative receivership of which he is registered as a director at Companies House is the bowls club at New Romney, in Kent, where he now lives. His occupation is given as "retired".

davidconn@independent.co.uk