UNDER-FIRE FA chairman Greg Clarke is under more pressure after claims he said he would be “f***ing fired” if he tried to push through anti-discrimination measures.
Former basketball star John Amaechi, now a psychologist and campaigner, was shocked by Clarke’s attitude when they met in March to discuss the possibility of a gay male footballer coming out.
Amaechi alleged that Clarke also stated that the government would never force the FA to act on homophobia because “”we have all the power and Fifa would step in and call it government interference”.
Amaechi, who in 2007 became the first former NBA star to come out publicly, said that the hour-long meeting was “tense but civil” but that he was surprised to receive a lecture on how “amazingly well Clarke and the FA were doing”.
He claimed he warned Clarke than one player going public would not bring meaningful change but Clarke then said his hands were tried by dinosaurs on the FA Council.
Amaechi said: “He was very descriptive and dismissive about these octogenarian blazers and, reading between the lines, he was saying they are a bunch of racist and sexist old men who block progressive changes.
“I told him he should do something that would have an impact and he said, ‘That’s what cost the last guy his job and and I’m not getting f**king fired for equality’.”
Clarke’s predecessor as chairman, Greg Dyke, clashed repeatedly clashed with the council for being too male, too old and too white and stood down in 2016 after his attempts at reform were blocked.
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Amaechi added that when he told Clarke the government would intervene over homophobia in football, the former Leicester director and English Football League chairman said, “They won’t do a f**king thing”.
Clarke said Fifa would view this as interference and would suspend the FA, preventing England from playing international football.
Amaechi said: “This made me realise the FA is the Saatchi of diversity and equality – they make great posters but they don’t do anything.”
Twitter users drew the attention of sports minister Tracey Crouch to Amaechi’s account.
But neither Crouch nor the FA commented on the latest bad publicity for Clarke.
The FA chairman stunned MPs at the DCMS Select Committee by launching into a rant about the PFA and describing talk of institutional racism in the case of Eni Aluko as “fluff”.
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