Parliament’s 17-vote censure for FA is more a whimper than a roar | David Conn

Feb 09, 2017

A threadbare attendance rather undermined parliament’s vote of no confidence in the FA, and the wait for more meaningful and radical change is likely to go on

A vote by MPs in parliament of no confidence in the Football Association, the 154-year-old governing body of our hugely beloved national sport, ought to stand as a grand historical moment, a necessary response by politicians to calamitous failures. Sadly, the “ayes” which had it for the motion brought by Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, cannot realistically be said to have written themselves into text books.

Leaving aside that Collins’s was a backbench motion with no legal force, considered an irritant by the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, who has given the FA until the end of March to present reform proposals, the attendance was threadbare. Of 650 MPs representing constituencies nationwide, 17 made it to the debate. It was almost as if parliament has much more pressing and significant issues to consider just now, maybe even national and international crises of politicians’ own making, than a session lecturing the FA on the precise ideal constitution of its board and council.

There is a danger that profound arguments about modern football are being narrowed into minutiae about board numbers

Tags: Football Football politics Politics Sport The FA