bleungberg.com

As predicted by Bleungberg a couple of years ago, the late, great Football Association now deservedly finds itself in a financial black hole in the region of £100m, thanks to its then greedy executives for favouring short-term gain over long-term stability by signing a record-breaking contract to cover the FA Cup and England matches with Setanta and ITV.

Brian Barwick, the ineffectual former chief executive who masterminded this deal in preference of those offered by established partners, Sky and the BBC, must shoulder the blame for all the ills which is currently swirling around Soho Square.
In 2007, with TV rights up for renewal, what Sky-BBC offered was only marginally less money than Setanta-ITV, but infinitely much more stability in the long-run.

Back then, the newbie sports channel wasn’t even an established name and was determined to break the dominance of Sky in the lucrative market of sports broadcasting.

Burly Barwick - a former head of sports at both ITV and the BBC - must have known then that the Setanta-ITV option would be a risky choice. Yet, he didn’t listen to those who had warned him of such a deal, and let the extra digits get the better of him.

All we’ll say is that you take on Sky at your own peril, and now that Setanta has gone bust, I doubt any upstart would dare challenge Rupert Murdoch again - even ESPN.
And all that leaves the FA with a financial blackhole to plug. No doubt, a new contract will be found with a new broadcasting partner - and for less money.

In the meantime, it once again brings into question the business acumen and disastrous leadership of Barwick.

Not only had he bungled the TV deal, but under his watch, Wembley Stadium lurched from one crisis to another, and who can ever forget his massive cock-up(s) over the severance of Sven Goren Eriksson, the subsequent failed courting of Luis Felipe Scolari, as well as the embarrassing appointment/swift sacking of the hapless Steve McClaren?!

Awful results on the pitch were also not helped by Barwick’s failure off-pitch by his inability to engage the FA by bringing it into the new century, including the continuing cronyism which still dogs the higher echelon of the organisation - men who don’t actually know much about running football - as well as never devoting enough money to tackle racism through a task force.

The FA is still trying to find its feet after a horrendous decade, and much of its current malaise originate from Barwick’s short tenure.

It is only right that it demands Barwick to hand back some of the severance pay and put them into better use.