The sudden resignation of English FA Chief Executive Ian Watmore reminds me of a secret shared between me and former Ghana national coach Sam Arday when I was a member of the Black Stars management board in the early nineties. Arday, one day overheard some football lobbyists gossiping that I was too gentle to serve on a board reserved for football politicians and I should be replaced with someone with a tough skin. We laughed over it when he told me the story and since then we teasingly shout at each other the phrase “too gentle” whenever we meet.

For the records, the man described as “too gentle” was part of Ghana’s football success story at the Barcelona Olympics when the Black Meteors beat Australia to win the bronze. But that is not the essence of this article.  Indeed my immediate reaction to the resignation of Ian Watmore’s resignation was that he had perhaps been incensed by Alex Ferguson’s description of the English FA as dysfunctional.

The Manchester United Manager was angry after Rio Ferdinand got a four match ban for a challenge on Hull City’s Craig Fagan. Meanwhile, Liverpool’s Gerrard was not punished for an elbow on Portsmouth’s Michael Brown freeing him to face United in their epic battle at Old Trafford.

“There is no consistency, it is a dysfunctional unit”, said Ferguson which I thought was enough insult to hurt the pride of the principled 51 year old Chief Executive of the  English FA , not knowing there was to him, a more serious board room scandal where a board decision had been leaked to the media. He was so disturbed that he wrote what could be interpreted as a query to all board members to find out who might have leaked that board decision.

No amount of persuasion from the FA Chairman, who from Watmore’s own testimony he has high regards, would let him rescind his decision to quit a post he had held for barely a year.  Infact, he is determined to fish for the culprit and expose the fellow for what he is. The man is too principled for the rough and tumble of football politics and I am sure football officials from my part of the world who boast of having tough skins would definitely describe him as too gentle to run football.

Ian Watmore

A BBC reporter has described the English FA as driven by conflicts of interest. People’s roles and responsibilities are either not defined at all or blurred or worse still set up directly in competition with each other. He is invited to visit my part of the world where even cabinet minutes could be leaked to radio panellists and board members could be leaking information on phone live to radio from board meetings.

Well, all is not lost. Football still has principled people like Ian Watmore to protect the image of the world’s number one spectator sport and we should thank God for small mercies.

Meanwhile, Alex Ferguson must be assured of a good company in the person of Alhaji Grunsah Chairman of Kumasi based King Faisal Babies. The usually tough talking club owner has also taken the Ghana Football Association to the cleaners for their handling of a disputed league match between Kessben and Berekum Chelsea at Abramkese on Feb 28.  The match was abandoned at the end of the first half when Referee Sellas Okine was reportedly hit by a missile thrown from the stands and sent to hospital.

The GFA is yet to decide on the fate of the match and this delay has infuriated Alhaji Grunsah to call for the dissolution of the FA Disciplinary committee. “They are useless”, he told an interviewer on Television.  May be those who say football administration is not for gentlemen may have a point after all. Cheers everybody and keep loving sports

FROM MY ARCHIVES

March 23rd1995:A French prosecutor in Valenciennes has urged a court to jail former Marseille soccer boss Bernard Tapie, for corruption and bribery in rigging a soccer match.