SVEN YOUR SMILIING

By Howard Borrell

The Premiership, The Football League and the FA all have a say in how our game is organised and structured. Needless to say what was the FA Premiership started out implying a partnership arrangement but that synergy seems to be gravitating more towards a domination by the monied clubs rather than a culmination of two in-common groups coming together for the good of the game.

Money matters just as much abroad but no riding roughshod there over the national associations who, in many cases, appear to be quite willing and capable of standing up to the big boys and standing firm to ensure policies that are introduced reflect the need of all of their clubs rather than just the few.

The recent Eriksson fiasco may, on the face of it, have little to do with lower division clubs but the impact of the shambles created by the FA could have wide reaching consequences for us all. Just when an uneasy alliance seemed to be in place the FA decided to go all moral. To even consider removing the England manager (I refuse to accord him his official title of coach since he doesn't involve himself in coaching) for merely playing around made the FA a total laughing stock. The average fan doesn't give two hoots if he has a different girlfriend every week as long as the team keep winning. Now, if the board had decided, quite rightly, that because he was unable to motivate a squad of players to perform beyond the ordinary his term of office should end few fans would have argued.

But morals?- if England had won Euro 2004 and Sven's antics had been the same there'd have been no criticism. £4m a year to preside over a team that retreats into a poorly organised defensive shell is scandalous not Sven's antics.

How many of you out there would be held to ransom by an employee demanding his pay be doubled ? - I certainly wouldn't but we had Palios, Davies et al falling over themselves to accommodate the ageing Don Juan.

Adam Crozier, before he offered his talents to Royal Mail, managed to sanction a debt of gargantuan proportion and Mark Palios rode in to remove it. Now the recent broader gains are likely to be stripped away as the Premiership boys see their chance to seize real power.

In the last couple of months since Sven's testosterone got into overdrive the FA have played into their detractors hands. Last month we had the sanctimonious David Mellor (who knows plenty about sleaze himself) suggesting the FA should be done away with - of course he would just have to be part of the body set up to replace it!!

Other dissenters think the FA shouldn't take charge of anything that makes money. They can, they feel, control the rules, grass roots football and Wembley because none are likely to make money this side of doomsday and the big boys can run the FA Cup (FA to be dropped I assume) and the England set up.

The Chief Executive of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore denied a power struggle was taking place. Of course we shouldn't believe him because the ethos of "more for the rich" is cast in stone and will certainly not have been helped by the inappropriate actions of an out-of-touch FA board who seem to do more harm to football every time they issue a press release.

Even local MP Richard Caborn called for the FA to move into the 21^st century or face government intervention. The game can really learn from politicians - I think not !

However unless the men in blazers do get their act together quickly they will find their home taken over by new landlords. So let's hope this season is remembered for a wins for Chesterfield and England and not for more of the same from the bureaucrats.