Crozier and the FA take their eyes off the ball

During England's illfated attempt to stage the World Cup further problems emerged on a regular basis, encouraging rival bidders to claim that the new Wembley might never happen at all. They may yet be proved right.

Crozier's role in all this has basically been that of the salvage operator. To be fair, it was beginning to look depressingly like another Millennium Dome shambles long before he became the FA's chief executive.

We should remember that he was given the job of revamping the FA because the professional game's big hitters - those who run the Premiership clubs - felt that he had precisely the qualities the sport needed in the new Millennium. "The FA have needed someone like him for a long time," I recall one Premiership chairman telling me.

The county types in blazers, who had run the game for more than a century, were now on the way out. Big-time football needed a new image and, as a successful joint chief executive of Saatchi and Saatchi, Crozier was well equipped to create it. He was told, in essence, to re-invent the FA. His reforms included the appointment of the first foreigner to coach England - Sven-Goran Eriksson. This may yet prove to be an inspired piece of work on his part.

But on the subject of Wembley he has had a hand in a series of owngoals and inexplicable U-turns. The most spectacular of these is his letter to Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, asking for another £150 million of taxpayers' money for the proposed stadium.

Professional football already has more money than it knows what to do with. To suggest that the taxpayer foot the bill for a new stadium is absurd and offensive at a time when hospitals, schools, railways and roads are in constant crisis.

Crozier's suggestion to Smith that any agreement be kept quiet until after the General Election suggests that he was clearly aware of the insensitivity of his proposal. But he could argue, of course, that had the Government found favour with the FA's request they would almost certainly have insisted it be kept quiet until after the election.

So the FA chief executive has shown an extraordinary naivety, but is this a sacking issue? When the FA employed him they knew exactly what they were getting. He was ordered to shake the place up and that is what he's done. They can hardly complain now.

What's wrong at the FA is that they've taken their eye off the ball - and the appointment of Crozier, a man with no football background, demonstrates this.