The PFA is no longer fit for purpose and Gordon Taylor is to blame
The coronavirus crisis should have been Gordon Taylor’s swansong. The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) has been irrelevant for years. This could have been the moment where it proved its worth. The Covid-19 emergency was a chance for the longstanding chief executive to show some statesmanship.
Instead, there is chaos. Government ministers, in a classic piece of misdirection, have created a controversy about footballers’ pay while the underfunded NHS is being overwhelmed. Political football? The players have taken an unwarranted kicking.
They have taken matters into their own hands and are negotiating on a club-by-club basis. They do not trust their employers. If their wages are slashed, they suspect the savings will be used in the transfer market and they will be subsidising their own potential replacements. Most have lost faith with the PFA.
The suspension of football last month caught most of the game off guard. The sport’s administrators accepted the government’s advice during early March while Downing Street’s ‘herd immunity’ theories were being played out. When the gravity of the situation eventually forced Boris Johnson to change strategy, most of the game’s administrators were caught by surprise. Shock and confusion were inevitable.
Slowly, the ruling bodies and related organisations got their act together and formulated a response. The PFA’s has been the poorest. Taylor has been at the helm since 1981 – he became chairman three years earlier before becoming chief executive – but there has been little evidence of that vast experience being applied. The situation is unprecedented but that is no excuse. The union’s remit is to protect the interests of its members. The PFA is failing to do so.
For years Taylor apologists have claimed that the PFA ‘does a lot of good work’. It is damning with faint praise. There has been nowhere near enough positive action on issues like racism and dementia. The majority of decisions – all the significant ones – have to go through the chief executive. There has been little delegation of power, which makes the organisation sluggish and painfully slow to react.
The players are fuming at the narrative that has developed over the past few weeks. They probably expected the clubs to hang them out to dry but they might have thought better of their union. The resentment will only grow.
If the PFA is glacial in its progression, Taylor is immovable. A year ago he announced he would leave his post but the conditions for his departure are so labyrinthine that it is hard to foresee his leaving party happening for at least another 12 months. First, independent reviews of the PFA by Sports Resolutions and the Charity Commission need to be completed. That will not be anytime soon. The formal terms of reference for the Sports Resolutions appraisal were published only last month. After that, a successor needs to be found and Taylor proposes working with his replacement for a bedding-in period. Then, at the next annual general meeting, he will finally depart. By then the union could be in shreds.
Taylor enjoys his lifestyle. He earns £2.3 million in annual salary. His office is packed with memorabilia and displayed for the edification of one man. He has a better collection than the National Football Museum which is located just a mile or so across Manchester’s city centre. Some of the finest relics of the people’s game are not accessible to the public.
Amid all the ancient jerseys and medals from the past, Taylor is the biggest anachronism in the room. He is no longer fit for purpose. The time for staged, elongated farewells is over. The sweep of coronavirus has widened the cracks between the union and its members. Things will not return to normal once the game begins anew and competition resumes.
If Taylor has any integrity left he should walk away now before the PFA becomes even more damaged. There is no chance of that happening.
