Premier League warns FA must change or die

The Premier League, backed by the most powerful clubs in England, will today launch a devastating attack on the structure of the Football Association in the most stark warning yet to the 142-year-old institution that it must change or face extinction.

The Premier League, backed by the most powerful clubs in England, will today launch a devastating attack on the structure of the Football Association in the most stark warning yet to the 142-year-old institution that it must change or face extinction.

The report, which will be released today but has been leaked to The Independent, accuses the FA of being "unsustainable" in its current form and warns that the dominant clubs in the country believe that "trust is lacking in the game at every level". It will leave the FA's new chief executive, Brian Barwick, in no doubt that the very foundations of the organisation that he took over in February are under threat.

The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, in consultation with his 20 member clubs, wrote the document for Lord Terence Burns who is currently conducting a review of the FA and is expected to report before the end of July. There could not be a more clear warning to the former Treasury official that the biggest clubs in the country expect him to recommend sweeping reforms if he wants to save the embattled FA.

Key among them will be the Premier League's proposals that the major clubs take a stake in the running of the England team, the operation of the FA Cup and conducting the relations with crucial world bodies such as Uefa and Fifa. If the FA was to lose control of those elements of its remit it would cease to be a significant organisation.

At stake is the FA's historic control over the national team. The last two years have seen the award of a new £4.5m-a-year contract to Sven Goran Eriksson and the subsequent resignation of the former chief executive Mark Palios after a scandal that centred upon the two men having an affair with the same FA secretary.

The Premier League report recommends that the clubs should be involved "actively and positively in the England team". On the FA Cup it claims that "antagonism can occur due to clubs feeling that the ... competition is not really 'theirs' in any meaningful way". With Uefa and Fifa, it proposes that the dealings with those bodies should be handed to representatives of the professional game or dedicated executives.

Any change to these three last bastions of the FA, which underpin its financial and legislative relevance, would represent a threat to its very future. Scudamore's report also warns that there are "a number of hotspots" in which the FA and the Premier League are in "an almost constant state of collision and disagreement".

In a wide-ranging and unrestrained attack on the FA, the Premier League report says that the basis of its criticisms are in the incompatibility of the professional game with the current FA structure. Referring to "an underlying sense of conflict and alienation between the constituent parts of the game", the strength of the language reflects a severe split between Soho Square and the country's most influential clubs.

Elsewhere in the report, the Premier League says that the FA is "no longer capable of properly managing" the development of the £757m Wembley stadium and the disastrous £20m National Football Centre near Burton-upon-Trent which could yet be abandoned. The Premier League concludes that the "strains and tensions" of undertaking these projects have led to "conflict and friction".

There is a fear among Premier League officials that the FA does not have the requisite experience to manage a stadium project as vast and as complicated as that involved in completing Wembley. The report warns that "the indebtedness attached to it [Wembley] ... would have profound consequences on any business". The Premier League also reported doubts about the FA's suitability to handle its annual income, which is understood to have fallen from £200m to around £160m a year. The report said that the way "declining revenues have been managed" have "dented the confidence of the Premier League in the FA over recent years".

In the FA's dealings with Uefa and Fifa, the Premier League says that communication processes have become "increasingly strained and outmoded". With so much at stake financially, it proposes handing that role over to the Professional Game Board.

The reports also asks serious questions about the usefulness of the governing body's 92-man FA Council which is made up of county members as well as representatives of institutions like Oxford and Cambridge University and the RAF. It is this body - known in football as the "blazers" - which is the most resistant to change in the FA and will form the greatest obstacle to any reforms Lord Burns proposes.

The report says that "the volume and level of debate at [council] meetings does not appear to justify the time and cost". The 12-man FA board also comes under attack. While there were changes made six years ago to channel some influence away from the conservative FA council, the Premier League report says "in practice this has not worked".

The office of chief executive, which Barwick has only just recently filled, is another target. The Premier League, which was deeply suspicious of Barwick's predecessors, Adam Crozier and Palios, accuses the office of a "current lack of clarity of leadership".

What's wrong with the FA? The Premier League says...

On its relationship with the FA

"Trust is lacking in the game at every level ... there is an underlying sense of conflict and alienation between the two constituent parts of the game."

On FA's relations with FIFA and UEFA

"The processes ... have themselves become increasingly strained and outmoded."

On England team

"The clubs want to be involved actively and positively in decisions to make the team successful."

On the FA Cup

"Antagonism can occur due to clubs feeling that the FA Cup is not really 'theirs'."

On changes the FA must make

"The creation of clear lines of authority ... will remove the problem of 'meddling'. There needs to be a very clear answer to the question 'whose job it is to?'"