I don’t know the Latin for “look busy and it’ll die down” – but whatever it is, it could do with being carved above the lintel of the Professional Footballers’ Association’s office in Manchester.
This is the stronghold of the organization's chief executive Gordon Taylor, who has been in charge for just the 40 years so far. That is slightly shy of someone like Cameroonian dictator Paul Biya, who has notched up 43 years of tireless service to his subjects. But as far as comparisons with other bosses in the humanitarian sector are concerned, there’s really no one to remotely touch him in terms of longevity. Certainly not since Mother Teresa left us.
As the highest-paid union official in the world, Taylor has seen off various attempted power grabs. You may recall his professional demise was widely predicted last November, when upstart PFA chairman Ben Purkiss called for an independent review into how the PFA is run. Under sustained pressure from people who wondered if the organization ought to be dragged into the late 20th century, never mind the 21st, Taylor eventually announced that he would permit a review.
In tandem with this – and I am sure it gave Taylor absolutely no pleasure – the PFA confirmed it had found two QCs who advised that Purkiss was not even eligible to be a member of the PFA. (It was duly pointed out that if Taylor really wanted to get into debates about compliance with PFA regulations, the organization's own rulebook states that “the chief executive should hold office for five years unless s/he resigns or is removed”. Furthermore, elections must be held every five years, but various PFA sources told the Times they weren’t aware of such a thing happening for at least 10 years.)
We haven’t heard any more about that “ineligible” line of attack on the turbulent Purkiss, thank goodness. But the other thing we haven’t heard anything more about, would you believe, is the promised review – and it now emerges that a full three months after Taylor’s announcement, it had yet to even be commissioned. Sport Resolutions, the independent body earmarked to carry out the review, last week confirmed to the Telegraph that it had heard nothing formally from the PFA. The PFA itself has declined to comment – something of a trend of late.
No doubt Taylor has been beavering away tirelessly for his members behind the scenes. But it has been a quiet few months for the PFA boss in front-of-house terms. A quick trawl through the archives reveals that Submarine Taylor has surfaced only a few times since all that unpleasantness. In late November, it was claimed that he had referred to black footballers as “colored” at a PFA event to promote racial equality and diversity. Four sources who attended the event suggested this, and a complaint was made to the PFA, which later stated that Taylor “firmly believes he didn’t say it”. And that, it seems, was the end of that.
Then, last month, came the annual reveal of Taylor’s pay packet. In 2018, we learned, Taylor still paid himself £2.29m in salaries and bonuses, just as he did in the previous financial year. If you want to put that into some kind of perspective, the PFA spent a mere £125,000 on research into head injuries in the year up to June 2018. Looked at another way, the average salary in the highest earning tier of charity bosses was found to be £186,000 in 2017.
Indeed, the other area of potential vulnerability for the PFA is a regulatory compliance case into their charity by the Charity Commission. Back in November, the latter told the Telegraph it was “aware of concerns regarding the expenditure of the Professional Footballers Association Charity”, and was working to establish the facts. It stipulated: “Trustees should be able to demonstrate that all decisions around expenditure have been carefully considered in line with the best interests of their charity and those it is set up to help.” The investigation was reported to be focused on how the PFA general fund charged the PFA charity.
So that remains ongoing. As for the pace that even commissioning the review of the PFA goes, might it be picked up somewhat? The further we get from all the heat and light generated in November, the more the momentum ebbs away. The professional obituaries of Taylor that were filed at the time could well end up looking premature.
“I am the first to admit that there are always areas we can improve,” he declared as he promised the review. Is he? I mean, he’s not the last to admit there are always areas they can improve. But with this sense of urgency, he probably places around the 25,000th mark.
Despite Taylor’s formidable powerbase, this should be a pressing concern to anyone who cares about issues affecting those players who make the game, from mental health to financial abuse to the mounting evidence of the effects of head injuries. The pressure on the PFA to submit to a modernizing review should be maintained in the interests of its members. If this glacial pace continues, it is difficult to escape that same old impression: that the interests of this most idiosyncratic of union chiefs are being better served than those of his members.
The Guardian Sport
