As an ex sportsman and coach I have been reading with interest the recent press coverage in the national news regarding the selling off of Wembley Stadium to help fund grassroots football.
Plans to sell Wembley Stadium for £600m have been called "ridiculous" by former England player Gary Neville. The Football Association says the sale could transform community facilities.
But Neville told MPs there were other ways revenue could be generated, such as a levy on agents' fees or reducing Premier League prize money. See BBC article here.
"The FA feels to fund the grassroots programme, they have to sell a national asset - it's quite simply ridiculous," the BBC quoted the ex-Manchester United defender.
Only one in three pitches at grassroots level is of adequate quality, says the Football Association.
The figure is part of the FA's written evidence for a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) parliamentary hearing on Wednesday about the possible sale of Wembley Stadium.
In this article on the BBC the FA says it is "considering a sale because it represents a transformative opportunity" to change "the poor state of community football facilities".
Well, after reading both pieces I am more inclined to agree with Gary Neville! Why? Because he speaks common sense, has played and managed the game at the highest level and knows only too well the colossal amounts of money that could be generated via other means.
For me they should sell Wembley, remove the burden of running this stadium and invest the money into developing a better strategy of managing the fundamentals of the game, starting at grass roots levels. The national team may still be able to play at Wembley or utilise many of our premier status stadiums up and down the county.
As listed in their report, the FA stated they are very aware of the problems with grassroots football.
There are 21,000 grassroots clubs, 50 county FAs, 25,000 schools and 330 local authorities which are catered for by the FA and, along with the finding that only one in three grassroots pitches are of adequate quality, the FA's written evidence also highlights:
- 150,000 matches were called off last season due to poor facilities
- One in six matches are called off due to poor pitch quality
- 33 of 50 county FAs are without their own 3G pitch
- Cancelled matches account for the equivalent of 5,000,000 playing opportunities lost this year because of poor facilities
- There are half the number of 3G pitches in England than there are in Germany
"The word for grassroots football is 'crisis,'" said Kenny Saunders, who runs pressure group Save Grassroots Football. "Government cuts to local councils are having a massive impact.
"Councils can't maintain pitches and more of them are selling them off."
From my own experiences, I have witnessed myself the deterioration of many parks, schools and grassroots club pitches, purely down to the lack of investment.
For many clubs, the reality is that these pitches only get cut and marked out with some token renovation work done to reseed some bare areas at the end of the playing season. This is clearly not enough investment, and one of the reasons we are seeing deterioration in grassroots pitches.
We need to change that mentality and advise and educate these clubs and schools of the benefits of maintaining these pitches properly.
The actual overall cost of maintaining a grass pitch is relatively cheap in the scale of things. You either invest in equipment and products, doing the work yourselves or you pay a local contractor to undertake the work. Based on one single pitch, a contractor should be able undertake work such as mowing, fertilising, weedkilling, marking and aerating the pitch throughout the season along with a typical end of season renovation - and it may cost you between £8-10,000.
I believe it is the role of the FA to educate clubs and clearly give them incentives to undertake this essential work and provide a safe consistent playing surface for the next generation of footballers.
As Gary Neville points out there are millions of additional pounds that could be raised by the FA via taxing the Premiership football clubs, TV companies and current major sponsors to ensure grassroots pitches can be maintained and managed to increase participation in the years to come.