Richard Scudamore Has Defended The Premier League - ex-Football Association executives

 

Richard Scudamore has defended the Premier League against ex-Football Association executives who criticised its influence at the governing body. Greg Dyke, David Bernstein, David Davies, Alex Horne and David Triesman have written to Culture, Media and Sport chairman Damian Collins MP to act on an out of balance FA filled with elderly white men.

Their letter also said the FA lacks independence and makes decisions based on vested interests due to a lack of checks and balances. Current FA chairman Greg Clarke hit back on Monday night and Scudamore has also dismissed the group's accusations.

The executive chairman, speaking at the 10th anniversary of their successful youth outreach programme Premier League Kicks, said “You just look at it and you sigh. We've heard it all before and it can't possibly be true. We don't block what happens at the FA. We've currently got two votes out of 12 on the FA board. That these people are 'ex' is the obvious connection between them all. They obviously weren't able to achieve anything when they were there. But it wasn't the Premier League's fault they couldn't achieve things. They clearly had their own methods and operations. We didn't even see any cohesive plans from any of them to say 'yes' or 'no' to, quite frankly. So I don't really think we need to dwell too much on it.”

Scudamore also insisted the quintet's claims that the Premier League's financial might has a negative effect on English football are ridiculous. He said: “We know where most of the money goes - it goes on to the show that is the Premier League, and acquiring talent, but a huge wedge of it, more than anywhere else in the world, goes in to supporting grassroots football. We are absolutely not (a juggernaut that resists change). History will show that, when the one substantive review in my time came out from Lord Burns, we the Premier League said 'let's adopt it in full'. It got watered down, not by us, but by other parts of the FA. That's the only significant set of proposals we've seen, and we said 'yes'.”