Chairman emerges with credit after bypassing Fabio Capello and grasping the nettle of John Terry’s court case
This is unusual territory for the Football Association in more ways than one. The governing body finds itself in the unfamiliar position of being widely, if quietly, praised for its handling of a toxic and difficult situation – outside Cobham and Stamford Bridge, at least.
Not for the first time the FA chairman, David Bernstein, has emerged with credit for calm, decisive action amid evidence of greater steel atop an organisation too often buffeted by events. The sports minister, Hugh Robertson, said: “This is not necessarily a popular thing to say, but I’m impressed with David Bernstein. He’s a very calm hand on the tiller. He seems to get the balance right. He calmly rang round the board, made a decision and pressed ahead with it. He did it in the right way.”
There was a sense of deja vu this week, as pressure built on the FA to act. They had been here before in Feburary 2010, when Terry was accused of an alleged affair with a former team-mate’s ex-partner. But it is a measure of the speed of turnover at the top of the organisation over the past decade that the inhabitants of both the chairman and chief executive chairs have changed since then.
Then, the chief executive Ian Watmore chose to handle the situation by attempting to clear enough air space to allow the decision to be made by Fabio Capello, though the Italian seemed to show little appetite for it, insisting the captaincy was a matter for the coach.
The issues were different this time. But Bernstein resolved to take the matter out of Capello’s hands reasoning, say insiders, that the issue was not simply a football matter but a broader one.
Bernstein’s statement, delivered direct to camera in Pravda-esque fashion from a Wembley box, made this explicit: “Fabio Capello has not been involved in the FA board discussions which reached this conclusion, but understands that the FA board has authority to make this decision.”
Bernstein’s move to bring the Club England wing of the organisation back under the jurisdiction of the FA chairman is also significant, allowing for swifter decision-making.
It has hard to imagine the famously low-key Geoff Thompson, Bernstein’s predecessor but one, putting his head above the parapet in such a way. And such was the level of vicious infighting during the David Triesman era, it is equally difficult to see him building a consensus for swift action in the way that Bernstein did.
Bernstein is quiet too. But quietly effective. Once Terry’s case was adjourned to July he consulted his 13 fellow board members, a number swelled since the addition of non-executive directors Heather Rabbatts and Roger Devlin last month, by phone on Thursday. The majority shared his view and Bernstein called the Chelsea player himself on Friday morning to inform him of the decision.
Rather than worrying about precedent or previous cases, he judged the situation on the facts before him and shifted course when circumstances changed. There is a valid debate about whether the FA should have acted earlier, especially once Terry was charged in December, but Bernstein can point to the widespread belief that the case was to be settled before the European Championship.
There is talk of a more businesslike approach in the Wembley boardroom since Bernstein arrived in January last year. Premier League insiders make increasingly positive noises about relations with their counterparts at Wembley, while good relations with Uefa have been fostered.
The former Manchester City and Wembley chairman has been criticised for his lack of dynamism in public. But following a period during which the FA churned through six chief executives and three chairmen in a decade, who all jumped or pushed for a variety of reasons, his calmly resolute stance might be just what it needs. He will need every ounce of it for battles to come. The FA is going into a major tournament with a coach who will leave at its end, no discernible succession plan in place and a now former captain facing a racism charge weeks after it concludes. Meanwhile, football’s response to government calls for change in the way the game is governed is due by the end of the month, with the composition of the FA board a sticking point. And for any stability to endure, the FA’s statutes will have to be changed if the 68-year-old Bernstein is to carry on beyond his 70th birthday in May 2013.
There will be no immediate respite either. Already, many are questioning whether it is a sustainable position to strip Terry of the captaincy but not suspend him altogether. Atop the dysfunctional FA, balancing inertia and knee-jerk reaction while being buffeted by the demands of the media and avoiding being undone from within by politicking or from without by the demands of the professional game has often seemed an impossible job. Bernstein seems to have got the balance about right. For now, at least.
John TerryThe FAEnglandChelseaFootball politicsOwen Gibson
guardian.co.uk
