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David Bernstein urges FA Council not to resist changes in its structure
• Chairman tells FA 'to show we can embrace certain change'
• Calls for two non-executive directors to be added to board
• Chairman tells FA 'to show we can embrace certain change'
• Calls for two non-executive directors to be added to board
- Owen Gibson
- The Guardian, Friday 25 March 2011 <li class="history">Article history
David Bernstein, the FA chairman, wants two non-executive directors to be added to the association's board. Photograph: Jan Kruger/The FA via Getty Images David Bernstein, the FA chairman, has made another small step towards reform of its board structure, telling the FA Council that the organisation needed "to show we can embrace certain change".
Having already won support from the board, currently split 50-50 between representatives of the national game and the amateur game, for the addition of two non-executive directors, he made his case to the FA Council.
"My advice, and you may accept it or not, is we need to show we can embrace certain change. On this independent non-executive directors issue we should not prevaricate," he told the 114 members of the FA Council. "This is a real issue and also a symbolic one. Our interests will not be served if this measure gets slowed down or ultimately rejected."
Bernstein believes that while the issue is nowhere near radical enough for many who believe the FA requires fundamental reform, it must be approached with care. Barry Bright, the FA board member and recently elected leader of the council, also spoke out in support of the measure. If there is a positive response from the council, typically resistant to change, then the matter could be put to a general meeting in June.
Critics point out that the addition of two non-executives, rather than the replacement of two existing board members, represents only incremental progress.
Lord Burns, the Channel 4 chairman who recommended in a 2005 report that two non-executives join the board, admitted to the parliamentary committee currently examining football governance that he wished he had gone further. Both Lord Triesman, the former chairman, and Ian Watmore, the former chief executive, have called for wholesale reform of the FA's structure. Watmore, who quit in frustration, favours a fully independent board split between FA executives and non-executive directors.
Bernstein, appointed in December in the wake of England's World Cup bid failure, has said he is in favour of "sensible, progressive reform". He will appear in front of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee at Wembley on Tuesday.
Bernstein also told the council he had requested the manifestos of both Fifa presidential candidates, asking how they would benefit English football. He said he would make this information public before the board decided whether to back Sepp Blatter or Mohamed Bin Hammam.
After FA board members had previously indicated they would support any challenger to Blatter, it was forced to issue a statement saying the matter had not been discussed at board level.
