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ENGLAND v CROATIA - PREMIER LEAGUE DESTROYS ENGLAND
The suits had gathered and the mood was sombre.
Steve McClaren had been put out of his misery at last and the movers and shakers at the Football Association were effectively apologising to the nation for England's failure to reach Euro 2008 in the manner they know best. By committee.
Geoff Thompson, the departing FA chairman, admitted he was embarrassed and so he should be since no-one can remember a single thing he has done at the FA other than shake hands with the players on match day and stand to attention for the national anthems.
Brian Barwick, the chief executive, told us how he "cared passionately" and how the FA must learn lessons.
Then the man given authority to identify the next England manager and launch a root and branch investigation into the problems of English football insisted he had no regrets about hiring McClaren, and you really did wonder whether the FA had the remotest clue what to do next.
Lord Brian Mawhinney looked on impassively, Manchester United's David Gill grinned sheepishly, a retired estate agent called Barry Bright, apparently FA vice chairman, looked as if he had wandered into the wrong room.
And then Sir David Richards answered a question about the perennial conflict between the Premier League and the England national side and you knew for sure that the game was up.
You knew with depressing near-certainty that England would not emulate Sir Alf Ramsey's Boys of 1966 this side of the next century.
You knew they almost certainly will continue to struggle to qualify for major tournaments.
This is what Richards, FA board member and chairman of the Premier League, said.
"It (the Premier League) has to work in the best interests of the clubs to start with.
"The Premier League can't shoulder responsibility always for the national team. The Premier League is the best in the world because it has got the best stars in the world. The Premier League will pick the best stars."
That does not sound like a man who is going to be sympathetic to any idea of a quota which might see more than the odd Englishman turn out for even the Premier League's minor clubs.
It does not sound like someone who has the faintest clue about how the obscene rush to amass an ocean of television money has skewed the nature of English football in favour of journeymen foreign mercenaries as well as the bona-fide top stars.
It sounds more like someone who believes the monster which is the Premier League is too big, too rich, too powerful, too successful to compromise for the sake of England football.
The suspicion and the sadness is that Richards is right.
Ask football fans, even those who braved the monsoon and traffic at Wembley on Wednesday, would they rather see their team reach the Champions League final and win the Premier League or England win a major championship and the vast majority, even those with flag of St George painted on their faces, would put club first.
It is the tribal nature of English football, nurtured for more than a century, which keeps so many clubs throughout the land viable and at the heart of their communities.
On the way, however, the England footballer has been squeezed and metamorphosed into one whose hunger has been dulled by easy money and fame, who too often fails to deliver at the crucial moments.
And when that happens he is booed, in the case of Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch in recent times, relentlessly and sometimes cruelly by the so-called faithful.
No wonder apprehension and uncertainty has attached itself to pulling on the shirt with Three Lions.
Of course things can be improved. They usually can when you hit rock bottom. And Barwick, in particular, has a huge role to play.
For one, by pushing through the building of the National Football centre at Burton, vital if England's stars of the future are ever to compete with the technical quality of their foreign counterparts.
By pumping in FA cash - and the coffers are bulging with TV revenue - to improve coaching, especially at schools and youth level where too much is still of the 'Get rid of it' mentality.
There is no doubt Barwick cares and there could be no more passionate champion of England's attempt to win the 2018 World Cup.
But when it comes to choosing the next manager it must not be Barwick who decides. Nor Richards. Nor the likes of FA committee man Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman who got it so spectacularly wrong with his appointment of Sammy Lee at his own club Bolton.
Football men must be canvassed. Men such as Alan Shearer and the FA's own Sir Trevor Brooking must make the football decision.
The FA cannot go on getting it spectacularly wrong and coughing up countless millions in compensation.
They were right to be embarrassed, just as those who wish to see England take on the world have every right to feel depressed.
The bottom line, however, is that even if the suits eventually get the right man they will still have no answer to the Premier League 'monster.'
By Bettingzone.co.uk
Used with permission.
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