Inside Lines: Strong-man Sir Keith Mills is tipped to take helm at Premier League

Sir Keith Mills, the Air Miles and Nectar Card inventor and America’s Cup backer, left school without qualifications but rose to become a millionaire entrepreneur (Getty)

The Premier League are being urged to find a “strong” chairman to replace the former investment banker Anthony Fry, who has stepped down after only a year because of ill health. I understand there is high-level pressure from the clubs, the League’s own advisory board and even Westminster to appoint a senior figure in sport to keep a firmer grip on the game following recent unsavoury incidents.

One of these involved the League’s omnipotent chief executive, Richard Scudamore, who was forced to apologise after sending emails containing crude sexual innuendos to friends and colleagues, something deemed “unacceptable” by both the Prime Minister and Sports Minister. There is a feeling that, despite his outstanding achievement in making the Premier League the most successful in the world, notably financially, a tighter rein now needs to be kept on the £1.8 million-a-year-former newspaper executive.

The League say the search for a successor to Fry may take up to a year. The first name in the frame is likely to be that of Sir Keith Mills, the Air Miles and Nectar Card inventor, and America’s Cup backer, who left school without qualifications but rose to become a millionaire entrepreneur.

Mills, 64, helped to mastermind London 2012 as Lord Coe’s deputy, and is a director of Tottenham Hotspur. Highly respected within sport as a formidable networker and negotiator, he has turned down a number of top administrative posts.

But there is a belief that his arm could be twisted once he has completed his current commitment to the Invictus Games, the Paralympics-style event for injured, sick and disabled service personnel which he is organising on behalf of Prince Harry. These involve 400 competitors from 14 nations competing in eight sports, and take place at the Olympic Park from 10-14 September.

The feisty Jamaican-born Heather Rabbatts, once chair of Millwall and now the Football Association’s only female director and chair of their inclusion board, who has accused the Premier League of a “closed culture of sexism”, would also be an outstanding if controversial candidate for the post.

New generation game

The real legacy of London 2012 seems to be the continuing success of Britain’s Olympic sports. Leaving football aside, there is hardly one that has not upped its game. This has been reflected from athletics to triathlon, and especially in gymnastics, which has come on in leaps and bounds. Several new home-brewed stars have been unearthed, among them the quadruple Commonwealth Games gold medallist Claudia Fragapane, with her flamboyant twists, wriggles, vaults and somersaults, and fellow 16-year-old Giarnni Regini-Moran, who scooped five medals, including three golds, in the much-underplayed Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, last week. There the GB squad of 32 athletes won a record 24 medals, (seven gold, six silver and 11 bronze) almost double the number achieved at the previous Games in 2010. Lord Coe says: “There is no reason why some should not be there or thereabouts in Rio.” How envious must be Roy Hodgson, who complains that English football’s talent pool seems to be shrinking as the national team face public apathy towards Wednesdays friendly game against Norway after their woeful showing in Rio.

Nothing like a dame

Kellie Maloney, currently being frank again on Celebrity Big Brother, has not been short of lucrative offers since stunning boxing by swapping that Union Jack suit for skirts and a blonde wig. Among these is one to appear in pantomime this Christmas. Much as we continue to admire Kellie’s courage in “coming out”, the prospect of someone who once was among the toughest traders in the hardest game of all camping it up as Widow Twankey at the Hackney Empire really does boggle the mind. Oh yes it does.

a.hubbard@independent.co.uk