James Lawton: FA in need of charismatic leaders, not mediocrity

In the final, pathetic unravelling of the Sven Goran Eriksson affair it was a little eerie to find oneself on the same side of the bed, so to speak, as that other famous sexual athlete David Mellor.

Mellor, as a former head of a Football Task Force which, with its budget of roughly three and six, served only to illustrate the government's absolute hypocrisy in all matters to do with sport, says that the one big lesson of the whole business is the terminal inadequacy of the Football Association.

He resurrects the argument he advanced during that brief tenure as the man appointed, without teeth, to examine ways of improving the national game. He is absolutely right. The Eriksson affair was only a scandal, as opposed to a grubby little tale of sexually predatory bosses and a compliant, and eventually much-enriched employee, in the incompetence and corruption to which the FA sank.

It is quite astonishing that the man who presided over this shaming chaos, the FA chairman Geoff Thompson, has been allowed to carry on, albeit with the help of Dave Richards, another time-serving blazer whose continued presence in the upper echelons of football administration is also staggering, especially when you consider his contribution to the near bankruptcy of Sheffield Wednesday and a record in business that most sober judges would describe as hardly of the first rank.

Mellor argues that never before has there been such a clear-cut need for an independent regulatory body which will focus on maintaining standards of discipline and genuine care for the game. He points out that the nearest thing to a football ombudsman's office is housed in Middlesbrough and is called the Independent Football Commission, a joke in itself in that its funding comes from the FA, a body which has now revealed itself to be in as much need of scrutiny as the rapaciously inclined Premiership.

At the time Mellor didn't exactly come across as the ideal leader of a thrusting probe into the most dangerous trends in modern football. A crony of Ken Bates, he was notably quiet when the former master of Stamford Bridge sent ticket prices rocketing and generally displayed the charm of an unhinged rhino. Some of Mellor's positions reeked of élitism and a recently developed passion for Chelsea chic. But now, with Roman Abramovich installed as the Tsar of English football, without even a token examination of his suitability - or the sources of his vast wealth - the old concerns threaten to turn into a full-blown nightmare.

At the height of the latest Eriksson mess, Richard Caborn, the sports minister who failed a no-brainer sports quiz when he appeared on a radio show a few days after his appointment, talked fatuously about the need for the FA to adopt a modern style of administration. Modern? No, the need is for something utterly timeless. The requirement is honesty, integrity, knowledge and proper leadership.

That there are enough men of the necessary quality available outside of the dreary ranks of FA politics is plain enough. Trevor Brooking has emerged as an outstanding candidate for an important role, and he would have a rich choice of allies if he could be persuaded to undertake a cleansing job: men like Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Bobby Robson, George Cohen, Nobby Stiles and Sir Geoff Hurst, men who are part of the achievement not the failure of English football. Cut these men and they bleed their feeling for the game, not executive privilege. Talk to these men about their priorities, and always they carry you back to what is most important: the real encouragement and the development of young people, a genuine passing on of the torch.

Abroad, such men naturally are given their place at the centre of affairs. Franz Beckenbauer has helped shape a culture that, until the latest European Championship, has been superbly effective on and off the field. When France won their World Cup, as hosts and competitors in 1998, Michel Platini was at the heart of the organisation, a crucial figure in his football intelligence and sheer aura. At a vital phase in the development of France's superb sports infrastructure, the sports minister was Guy Drut, an Olympic hurdling champion. Who does the FA offer by way of leadership and charisma? Thompson, Richards, men for whom mere mediocrity is a goal rather than a failure.

It is maybe a little ironic that Mellor is now such a strong and cogent voice on behalf of football reform. He did, after all, come to the game as a refugee from some scandals of his own in government, but that is not the point. What he is saying is vitally important - and sadly rare in the analysis of what has been happening in the Soho Square offices of the FA. It should have been the universal reaction to the sickening news that key figures in the national game had gone to the News of the World offering Eriksson's expensive head on a platter in exchange for the neck of chief executive Mark Palios. That was a point of moral breakdown which demanded, more than anything in the often sad and misguided history of the FA, outside intervention.

Now, in the loathsomely prurient aftermath of an affair which over the weekend occupied acres of space in two Sunday newspapers - and for what but a tedious recital of what sounded like pretty sub-Casanovan sex? - that imperative of reform should only intensify. The horror is that only a few faces will change.