Ex-FA chairman Greg Dyke calls governing body ‘bunch of tosspots’ who do not want to change over axed Wembley sale
The former FA boss thinks selling Wembley was an attractive proposition and believes the board does not have the guts to enforce a levy on transfers or agents
GREG DYKE has branded FA members who helped block the sale of Wembley Stadium as "tosspots who don't want change".
Former FA chairman Dyke, 71, quit his position in 2016 after three years in the role over disputes concerning reform within the governing body.
He told , “The trouble with the FA Council is that it is full of complete tosspots who don’t want change.
“When we launched the Parklife scheme there were people from the rural FAs who complained they wanted their share when it was obvious you needed to start in the big cities.
“Selling Wembley was an attractive proposition but you have to be certain you can get that money into the right parts of the grass roots of the game.
“If you have people competing for the money, and then others like the EFL saying they want 25 per cent of it for their own clubs’ projects, that starts to muddy the waters.”
Dyke was supportive of Gary Neville's plan to levy agents' fees but fears the FA would be unable to enforce the change, which would raise the Football Foundation's annual budget of £55million by almost half with a ten per cent levy.
He added: “If the FA had the guts they could put a levy on the Premier League clubs for every time they did a transfer or paid an agent, but it would lead to a real bust-up with the clubs.
"I’m not sure they do have the guts to do that. There are other ways of generating money — if you want a large lump sum now for grass roots then you can borrow it against future income and pay it off from TV rights and income from the stadium.
“You have to have sympathy with local government — they have been cut and cut, year on year. You can’t even be sure they will pay match funding.
"That’s why the Parklife scheme in Birmingham died, they had no money and couldn’t pay their bit of match funding.”
Fulham owner Shahid Khan withdrew his £600m bid to buy the national stadium this week.
But FA chief executive Martin Glenn rebuffed claims of a plot within the council to block the sale.
And Glenn is unconvinced a levy on agents or transfers would be possible.
He told the : “Gary Neville would say put a tax on agents and a windfall tax on the Premier League. Good luck with that.
"But the value of where we are is that the whole thing is now a wider debate among politicians and other people who can make a difference.
“They [Khan] have walked away from the deal, we haven’t. A lot of people — the Premier League, the Government, Sport England — all saw this as a great deal for football.”