The U.K. government has "stepped up pressure on the FA" to modernize its "antiquated structures with a written threat that it could withhold millions of pounds in funding," according to Dickinson & Ziegler of the LONDON TIMES. A letter from Culture Secretary John Whittingdale "warned the governing body that it could lose" £30M ($40M) in taxpayer support "unless there are significant reforms." Whittingdale’s intervention is the "latest escalation in a long-running battle over the FA’s ancient and unwieldy governance." It comes just as the governing body’s leadership is "under fresh scrutiny after England’s embarrassing exit from Euro 2016 at the hands of Iceland." The FA under CEO Martin Glenn is "seeking to present itself as a modern organisation but attempts to update the FA Council and committee structure have been resisted for decades by the blazers." FA Chair Greg Dyke, who steps down next month, had "hoped that his last act would be to drive through change." But he "failed in his attempt to make the FA Council more diverse and representative, as well as streamlining the number of committees." Of the 123 members of the council, six are women, four are from the black and minority ethnic community and "there is one players' representative and one fans' representative." Whittingdale said that the FA has an "outdated and unrepresentative governance model" and his letter "sets out the need for the FA to comply with a governance code, which is being finalised before Sport England’s next round of four-year funding." The quango gives £30M to the FA "in each cycle at present." Whittingdale has warned that the FA “will not get a penny of taxpayers’ money in the future” if it does not adapt, with the money diverted to other grassroots organizations. In its last published figures, the FA reinvested a record £117M ($155M) "back into football, but any financial blow would come at a difficult time after a huge restructuring under Glenn, including 100 redundancies" (LONDON TIMES, 6/30).
