FA reform: Former chiefs say 'elderly white men' block change

[El Presidente]

FURTHER evidence that there is only one man fit to run English football, and that man is LEON KNIGHT

 

[Hastings gull]

It’s a fair question. I'll give it a long winded bash.

Grassroots football has been far too slow to change in this country and still remains chronically underfunded. The football pyramid in just too top heavy.

In this country the vast majority of organised kids’ football is run, managed and coached by parents. Voulnteers basically. As admirable as this is for the parents willing to give up their time, I did for the best part of 10 years, it really isn’t good enough. We have a chronic lack of highly skilled coaches compared to other leading European nations. Many teams will just be coached by Level 1 parent coaches, a very basic qualification, and perhaps some help from a Level 2 coach.

The FA introduced an excellent parallel coaching path called the Youth Awards about nine years ago. They work in Modules from 1 -3. You can only take Module 3 however if you have a Level 2 on the General side as the Module 3 is beyond a Level 2. Fantastic scheme!, delivered really well by the County FA’s. I did Module 1 & 2 and can’t speak highly enough of them. Advanced courses do cost a fair bit in terms of money and especially time (difficult for volunteers in full time-work). I was lucky that our club had a policy of paying for coaches/managers to take courses and I went as far as time and my commitment level would allow.

However, the frustration for me came with waiting for change in the format of the Youth game. It was breaking my heart seeing 10 & 11 year olds running around on full size, long grass muddy pitches (yes, facilities have always been woeful for grassroots football). The smaller kids who were good techincal players at mini minor football were suddenly struggling against teams that would just hoof it up to a big centre forward to run onto and score from all distances against a child keeper with absolutely no chance of covering a full size goal. Honestly, it was soul destroying to watch.

I was fed up of asking at various coaching courses what the FA, County FA’s and Leagues were going to do about changing the format of youth football. I was told the FA left it up to the Counties, who in turn left it up to the Leagues. Long story short, no change, even after I personally petitioned all the other teams in our league to see if they wanted change.

Eventually change did come! http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/news/2...youth-football-whats-in-store/comment-page-7/ Hurray!, but it was a long time coming and still possibly doesn’t go far enough.

When the change came, I heard Trevor Brooking interviewed about it on radio. The interviewer put it to him that there’s been a movement for this change within Youth Football for quite a while, so why have the FA taken so long. His response was that they didn’t want to “force the door down”, but rather “push at an open door”, and they’d been working hard to persuade adults in youth football that this change was necessary first. That just about sums up the FA for me and their reluctance to take bold decisions. I want a benevolent dictator of an FA to be honest with you, bringing in radical changes where they think they’re needed. And if those changes aren’t working, change it again!, until it does work. Not fence sitters having endless meetings in blazers before anything gets done.

Let’s look at one of the FA’s big campaigns in recent times . Respect. Very admirable, and this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A-pTcP9CjE shown at coaching courses up and down the country does a good job of conveying the message, for the kids game at least. But let’s look at what kids are watching on TV shall we?

Seasoned pros shouting and swearing at refs week in week out.

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What are the punishments? Not a lot really, beyond the odd booking for dissent or a disciplinary committee meeting if things get too far out of hand. Compare it with Rugby. What a world of difference! Calling the officials Sir, only the team captain allowed to speak to the ref. I read that attitudes may sadly be changing http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-un...eat-as-instances-of-verbal-and-physical-abus/, but I bet the Rubgy authorities will clamp down on it hard to stop it escalating. Our FA seem too afraid to take really firm measures to sort out clear problems.

FIFA and our World Cup bids - If the FA really believed that FIFA was corrupt and that the bidding process was corrupt, why take part in it? I’d rather an FA that would come out and say, “ We don’t have any faith in the bidding process and will therefore not be entering a bid until such time as we believe things have changed”. Will they say this?...well yes actually, Dyke finally did say effectively that. Good on him! But too little too late again I’m afraid. Instead we end up looking like a case of sour grapes as we appeared willing to play the game and only complained when the decisions went against us. Stuck in the muds again, afraid to be radical right from the off.


Southgate being interviewed for the full time England manager job. Really?! What exactly is that about? It’s a poison chalice as it is, we will only accept an Englishman for the job. He’s been involved with the U21’s , did ok in the 5 or 6 game trial period, there’s no other candidates. I’m not Southgate’s biggest fan by any means, but for crying out loud give the poor bloke some confidence and backing and just appoint him. No, more blazers in committee meetings needed for that to go ahead.


The FA do some sterling work. I’m no expert and I’m sure they do even more that many of us just don't see. But to the average layman and woman, I suspect they come across as a dinosaur organisation, slow to change and appearing to be on a nice little gravy train for their blazer brigade. Of course, if England were ever to win a major tournament again, that perception could very well change, literally overnight

I thank you for taking the time. Very sad, but not totally surprising.

 

[Hastings gull]

Too right they will. From the report you quote. "The punishments in rugby, however, do still appear rather more severe. In Cornwall this season, a Redruth Albany player was banned for 18 weeks for “serious verbal abuse” of a match official." Can't see that happening in football any time.

I'm not involved in grassroots football but I do coach youth rugby and cricket at weekends. We drum respect for opponents and match officials into kids and make it clear that dissent is not tolerated - they're left in no doubt that bad behaviour will see them kicked out of the club (I know one local cricket club asked two junior players to leave following such abuse).

I've never seen any kid disrespect the ref/umpire, nor have I seen an adult do it when I watch senior matches. It's not that difficult to instill discipline into young players. I'm not sure why football clubs are so reluctant to do so

To be fair, we don't know if that is the case. I was a youth team manager, and never ever questioned a ref's decisions in front of the kids, and told them that neither were they to. But from time to time, we did have some parents who did not always set a good example. It is easy to compare rugby with football, but let's be quite honest, rugby parents are rather different to football parents. That is of course a massive generalisation, granted, and I certainly take on board what another poster wrote, namely that the rugby authorities have done so much more. I think it is fair to say that football has a more difficult task, but if there is a real will, then undoubted progress could be made, even if abuse will probably not be totally eradicated.

 

[BeHereNow]

Diversity is code for White Genocide.

 

[yxee]

Racist, ageist and sexist in a single headline. This really annoys me. They're incompetent, why absolve them of their responsibility in this way by attributing it to their age/race/sex?

 

[knocky1]

Diversity is code for White Genocide.

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