Sir Dave Richards, the Premier League chairman, today said he had “never bullied anyone” as he denied accusations he blocked reform at the Football Association.
He told MPs statements made by Lord Triesman, the former FA chairman, that he used aggressive tactics to force the will of the professional game on colleagues from the national game “saddened” him and made him feel “a little dejected”.
“I have never bullied anybody. It is a fair and democratic board at the FA,” he said in evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee’s inquiry into football governance. “To think that the Premier League chairman could block nine others is ridiculous. To suggest that I bullied people really hurt me.”
Although the mutual antipathy between Richards and Triesman was well known in the game, the Premier League chairman said he had been nothing but supportive to the Labour peer after he was appointed the FA’s first independent chairman.
“I thought I was reasonably close to Lord Triesman. I helped him very much when he wanted to be introduced to people. I went with him travelling. There may have been differences of opinion but I never brought them into the boardroom,” he said.
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Richards also sits on the FA’s main board, which ministers believe is stymied by vested interests to the detriment of the wider game, especially the England team. One purpose of the inquiry is to establish whether the appointment of two independent non-executive directors would provide a better balance.
The reform – originally proposed by the Burns review in 2005 – has already been put to the FA council by David Bernstein, Triesman’s successor, who is reasonably confident he can push it through over the summer.
Richards said Triesman did not create consensus around the issue of reform. “He had ample opportunity to bring Burns’ proposals back and start to work to where he wanted to be. He never did that,” he said.
In his evidence to the CMS select committee in February, Triesman said his plans for reform, intended to be contained in a written submission to the government, were blocked by professional game representatives at an FA board meeting.
The suggestion was that the Premier League wanted its view to prevail and was resistant to any alternative input.
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Richards and Richard Scudamore, the Premier League’s chief executive also giving evidence, disputed Triesman’s version of events, claiming he dropped his proposed submission on the FA board with little more than 24 hours’ notice.
They said the entire ten-man board had rejected the proposal because of the lack of consultation.
Providing some insight into their relationship, Scudamore admitted he had been “affronted” after Triesman chose to go public with a criticism of Premier League clubs’ debt after the two men had started discussions behind closed doors.
“When you are really proud of something my view is not to criticise it quite so directly,” he said. Triesman’s attempts to make himself executive chairman were also the source of friction, he added.
During rare moments when MPs’ questioning pertained to forward-looking issues, Scudamore said he agreed with the break-even concept proposed by Uefa under its financial fair play rules intended to keep clubs’ spending within their means.
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He said he thought it would eventually apply to Premier League clubs not competing in European competitions but cautioned against rushing into it.
“There are some doubts about what it will achieve. It may lock in the natural order where those clubs with extremely large revenues are the ones who can have big expenses,” he said. “That would stop the local businessman-made-good investing in his local team, which is the essence of English football.”