1.

Introduction

As sole arbiters of the national game, the Football Association (FA) is an umbrella organisation
encompassing not only the playing side (from grassroots, through the professional football leagues and
up to the National team) but also a huge range of stakeholders with a vested interest. As the governing
body of the ‘Nation’s game’, the importance of its stewardship and the effect of its ‘reach’ out to the
country as a whole cannot be underestimated. From the football clubs, players, employees and
corporate sponsors to supporters, local communities and authorities, even the interests of non-sporting
members of the general public fall under the category of stakeholder. Stakeholder/Stewardship Theory
immediately become relevant but not as an exhaustive list of potential discussion points.

The structure of the FA differs from that of the usual single-board organisations in the UK (the ‘Anglo-
Saxon’ model) in that it incorporates a dual-board structure favoured in Continental Europe/Japan
comprising of a main (executive) FA Board made up of: an Independent Chairman; Chief Executive
Officer (CEO); 5 representatives of the Professional Game (Premier League (PL) & Football League (FL)); 5
representatives of the National Game (‘Grassroots’ football) and a (supervisory) FA Council made up of
121 members, with the majority representing the local County FA’s. The need, therefore, for close co-
operation between the Board and Council is imperative but due to the divisive internal structure
(between PL/FL/Council) the charges of conflicted decision-making and an overall air of weak leadership
were often held against the FA. Holt et al. (2005) state that a two-tier system can provide an appropriate
vehicle for effective stakeholder integration, but this can only be realised if the bodies into which
stakeholders are integrated are effective.

Further accusations of the FA’s inability to combat the increased influence of the PL and the
unrepresentative, anachronistic nature of the FA Council – of 121 members there was just one
representing players, one representing referees, one representing supporters, none representing
coaches and none representing Youth football. In comparison there was representation amongst the
Council for members of the Armed Forces and the Oxbridge Universities resulting in a lack of diversity,
giving the appearance of the FA Board/Council and Senior management team as white, male, elderly
and short of representation from a multitude of stakeholders in the game (Winter, 2005).

In July 2008 the All Party Parliamentary Football Group (APPFG) reported its “Inquiry into English
Football and its Governance” whose key issues concluded with the summary of Walters & Hamil (2008)
that despite a proactive approach taken by the football authorities, the impact of the measures that
have been implemented have had a limited impact and there is a need for the football authorities to
continue to pursue a good governance agenda to improve standards of club-level governance.

In December 2010 the Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport sat in session and
heard from experts in football governance, in April 2011 the then Sports Minister Hugh Robertson MP
gave an ultimatum to the FA that reform was needed, or legislation would be forthcoming, stating that
the Government is concerned by a number of problems bedeviling the game, including the amount of
debt carried by football clubs, the lack of financial transparency and the difficulty of establishing the
ownership of some clubs. Just six months later, Robertson reiterated his demands for reform with the
threat that legislation for an independent regulator for football was being drawn up to force upon the
FA.

Finally, in February 2017, at the conclusion of the debate into Football Governance, in The House of
Commons, a vote of no confidence in the FA was passed warning them that if reform was not
forthcoming, reform would be delivered:

“That this House has no confidence in the ability of the Football Association (FA) to comply fully
with its duties as a governing body, as the current governance structures of the FA make it
impossible for the organisation to reform itself; and calls on the Government to bring forward
legislative proposals to reform the governance of the FA.” (Hansard, 2017).

(FA, 2017) From the Autumn of 2016 the FA conducted a six-month review and comprehensive
consultation of its corporate governance with a range of shareholders and stakeholders including
representatives of: The National Game; The Professional Game; Supporters Groups; Professional
Footballers Association (PFA); League Managers Association (LMA); Government; Sport England (SE).

On the 6th March the FA Board proposed their corporate governance reforms, the 3rd April the FA
Council unanimously agreed the proposals and on the 18th May the FA shareholders ratified them.

The changes that were made consisted of, firstly, the FA Board – reduced members from 12 to 10; three
female members by 2018 and maximum term limits for members of 3 x 3 years. Secondly, the FA Council
– 11 new members reflecting the inclusive and diverse nature of English football; all members to be
active in the organization they’re representing; no more additions to Life/Senior VP’s and similar term
limits to the Board.

Whilst the FA’s own proposals were being discussed across the layers of vested interests, “A Code for
Sports Governance” was introduced by the new Sports Minister Tracey Crouch MP requiring any
organization asking for public funding to meet ‘gold standards of governance’ including: Increased skills
and diversity in decision making, with a target of at least 30 per cent gender diversity on boards; Greater
transparency, for example publishing more information on the structure, strategy and financial position
of the organisation and constitutional arrangements that give boards the prime role in decision making
(Sport England 2017).

The headline change in cutting the Board membership was proposed by the Burns report some twelve
years earlier, hardly allaying the claims of the FA’s accusers of the organisation’s reactionary nature
rather than pro-active, whilst the change to include a significant increase in the make of the Board in
terms of gender is in line with the Sport England code. However, this proposal was thrown into disarray
just three months after being proposed with the resignation of the only female member of the Board,
citing the lack of progress being made with promoting ethnic minorities through the game.
The introduction of term limits for both the Board and Council were a step in the right direction towards
‘freshening up’ the membership in order to end the culture of a ‘closed shop’ with the cessation of
awards of lifelong affiliations intended to, eventually, rid the organisation of its ‘old boys in blazers’ tag.
Public perception of the FA, regardless of any financial worth, is fundamental in being seen to be a more
moral, ethical, socially responsible institution, one that has a stakeholder list that, arguably, includes
every person in the country, whether a football supporter or not. Whilst the FA is publicly exposed,
primarily, to the fortunes of the England national team, it still has a responsibility to focus on its
‘reputational’ risk. After all, there is a high necessity for a properly governed FA in order to promote the
game in this country and abroad.

With already 121 members within the Council, the introduction of a further 11 members, however
diverse and inclusive, projected a sense of muddled thinking about the reforms. On one hand the Board
is being cut in numbers to promote a more ‘streamlined’ approach, on the other, the already
‘cumbersome, unwieldy’ Council membership is being increased. Best corporate governance practice
would include the need for the Council (effectively the Non-Executive Directors (NED’s)) to be a more
demanding and effective platform, one that positions itself to challenge and debate the strategy and
decisions of the Board, rather than becoming a self-interested, bloated layer of bureaucracy

Certainly, the FA’s new code was an example of a forced reluctance to change and with the
condemnation of ‘piecemeal’ reform directed at the FA there were concerns raised by members of both
the Board and Council, bemoaning the ‘weakening of Board unity’ and suggesting that the reforms
would ‘dilute the footballing experience’ of the organization. Self-preservation dictates the accusations
towards the changes as ‘a box-ticking exercise’, merely paying ‘lip service’ to the previous threats from
the MP’s in the debating chamber and from the Sports Minister.

The true shareholders of the FA are the general football public, those who demand the FA show
accountability, good practices, proper controls and administration in order to grow the game from
grassroots football up to the national team. In essence it is the balancing act between all stakeholders of
the FA that is most problematic, the accusations of failure to combat the increased influence of the
Premier League and its continued battles that consume a fair proportion of the FA’s interests results in
poor performances concerning other issues that aren’t paid attention to, hence an almost continual
series of corporate governance issues highlighted at the beginning of this introduction.

Corporate governance amongst listed, Public Limited Companies (PLC’s) include controls on financial
aspects and compliance requirements, most notably the remuneration of the directors and auditing
responsibilities. With the FA a private limited company these aspects are not usually highlighted as
issues. On the subject of institutional investors there is a need for the FA to adopt a dialogue and an
understanding with its main sponsors, whose financial contributions are an essential component in
delivering the funding needed to satisfy the FA’s core goals. No doubt that companies such as Coca-Cola,
Emirates Airlines, Mars, National Express, Carlsberg and Walkers had a vested interest in the reform
changes and it is the perspective of these multinational organisations towards the FA and its corporate
governance dealings, combined with the potential effect upon their own brand name or image that is
sought within this research paper.
The documentation of the travails of the FA’s corporate governance issues above are by no means
unique in football in the UK, or indeed sport globally. Similar notable failings across individual European
FA’s (the “Calciopoli”, 2006 Italian football scandal involving the referee organisations and team
managers and the “50 + 1 Rule” introduced to German football where a club must retain the majority of
voting rights for its members, to name a couple) not to mention the corruption allegations and
convictions that have tarnished the reputations and standing of the ex-president of the Union of
European Football Associations (UEFA), Michel Platini, who in 2015 was banned from football over
ethics violations and Sepp Blatter, the ex-president of the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA), who was similarly banned from football activities for 6 years. Further afield in sport, a
plethora of drugs-violations scandals have befallen the ruling organisations of international Athletics and
the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and Major League
Baseball (MLB) in the United States.

The main focus of this research paper is centered on the English Football Association and builds, not
only on a previous report written by this author, but also on the experience and knowledge gained from
a lifelong support of an English football club and the sport in general, by attempting to gather the views
and thoughts towards football’s governing body, from a sample of the stakeholders, by means of
collecting quantitative primary data, through a questionnaire survey, and a collation of secondary
quantitative data to form a case study complementing the primary data. Whilst not an exhaustive list of
interested parties, targeting those that can be considered as the ‘main players’ provides an initial
platform of understanding and consequently, scope for further research in the field: The FA’s
‘shareholders’ – all 92 professional football clubs own a ‘share’ of footballing rights to compete in the
various league and cup competitions; The FA’s ‘institutional investors’ – the corporate firms who
sponsor the FA; The general football-supporting public – individuals/supporter’s trusts/organisations.

Despite the litany of failures associated with corporate governance failures at the FA, combined with the
well documented media coverage, there are, to this author’s knowledge, no specific academic, peer-
reviewed journal articles on the subject proposed by this paper. The nearest similar paper is a review of
the stakeholder approach to football governance among the professional clubs within French football
(Senaux, 2008), hence, this empirical study of the subject is intended to offer a unique insight into the
FA and, in a sporting context, to supplement the existing literature in general corporate governance
issues within businesses and organisations.

The structure of this paper is as follows. The next section introduces the literature review detailing
relevant subject material on sporting and general corporate governance issues. The third section
provides the Methodology conducted to form the basis of the primary and secondary data. The fourth
section contains the results and findings of the statistical analysis of the questionnaire responses along
with accompanying secondary data case study discussions. The paper finishes with a summary
conclusion and thoughts upon potential further research.