the times | Thursday November 26 2020 2GM 67
FootballSport
Gordon Taylor has announced his
intention to finally stand down as chief
executive of the crisis-hit Professional
Footballers’ Association by the end of
the season, marking the end of his
40-year reign.
The 75-year-old, who is the highest-
paid union official in the UK and earns
as much as £2.3 million a year,
announced his decision yesterday in a
letter to PFA delegates before today’s
annual general meeting (AGM).
Lucas Moura says that his Tottenham
Hotspur team-mates need to start
believing that they are good enough to
win the Premier League.
The forward said they have top
players who were benefiting from José
Mourinho’s experience to lead them to
the top of the table, but that their mind-
set needed to become a winning one.
Tottenham’s title challenge faded
three times under Mauricio Pochet-
tino, the previous manager, and the
club have not won a trophy since beat-
ing Chelsea in the League Cup in 2008.
“We know how difficult the Premier
League is but why not think to win it?”
Moura said. “Every time we are on the
pitch, we need to think we are able to
win it. We need to think that every
game is important and that is why we
are showing this mentality.”
Mourinho will rest a number of
players when Tottenham host
Ludogorets in the Europa League
group J tonight before Sunday’s game
against Chelsea. He will be without
Toby Alderweireld, the centre back,
who will be sidelined for up to four
weeks with a groin injury.Arsenal go into their game away to
Molde this evening with Mikel Arteta
telling Nicolas Pépé that he needs to
reward his support and patience by
delivering performances.
The Arsenal manager had talks with
the winger after saying that his head-
butt on Ezgjan Alioski was “unaccept-
able” in the 0-0 draw away to Leeds
United on Sunday. Pépé’s dismissal
added to the disappointment over his
limited impact since the club paid
£72 million to Lille for him in 2019.
Arteta said that Pépé will get an
immediate chance to respond in the
Europa League group B tonight. “I
know what he can do. It’s in his hands.
It’s a player I really like, I know what he
can give us and it’s completely down to
him,” Arteta said.Today’s games
Braga v Leicester City
5.55pm, BT Sport 1
Molde v Arsenal
5.55pm, BT Sport 2, talkSPORT 2
Tottenham v Ludogorets
8pm, BT Sport 2Lack of belief is holding
us back, says Spurs’ Moura
Europa League
Gary JacobTaylor to finally quit after 40 years
He first announced in March last
year that he would step down once an
independent review into the organisa-
tion’s finances, which he commissioned
in October 2018, had been completed
and a successor found. Reaching that
point has proved outrageously slow,
enabling Taylor to prolong his tenure
and earn a further £5 million, dating
back to when the chairman Ben Purkiss
first called for much-needed moderni-
sation of the PFA in November 2018.
As ever with Taylor he attempted to
control the narrative, with the assist-
ance of a PR company that specialisesin managing crises. He first recruited
the firm after Purkiss challenged his
leadership and called for an independ-
ent review of the organisation.
That QC-led review was completed
by Sport Resolutions in July but it
remains unpublished and only the key
recommendations were circulated in
an attachment to the letter sent out by
Taylor yesterday.
Initially the PFA promised an open,
transparent process, tempering that
after the AGM in March last year by
stating that the management commit-
tee may limit publication to key
findings and recommendations.
The union has come under fire re-
cently for the measures it has taken to
tackle dementia, while its charity arm is
the subject of a statutory inquiry led by
the Charity Commission. However, any
criticism that may arise of Taylor and
his leadership has been quashed.
As The Times reported last month,
one recommendation — which also has
not been published — is for the next
chief executive to earn a salary closer to
£500,000 a year. All that was outlined
yesterday was that four new non-exec-
utive directors, soon to be appointed to
lead the search for Taylor’s successor,
will set the salary for the role, subject to
the approval of a new players’ board.
The recommendations that were
published were described in some
quarters as wholesale changes, not
least because of the creation of a
new operational board as well as a
players’ board that will replace
the management committee.
However, the operational body
is due to include one of
Taylor’s key allies: Darren
Wilson, the finance direct-
or, who earns £350,000 a
year. The new chief execu-
tive and the four non-ex-
ecutive directors will form
the rest of that board.
The review states:
“The current governance
structure did notmaximise opportunities for member
engagement and a new structure
would allow for members to have a
greater say.”
It also says the players’ board will be
“the supreme governing body of the
PFA and the ultimate decision-making
authority within the union”.
A need for more transparency means
that “conflicts of interest policies for all
committees and boards should be sub-
ject to regular review and updating,
both as a standing agenda item and ad
hoc”. Such conflicts of interest are
understood to have been a particular
focus of the Charity Commission.
Other recommendations include a
call for the business advisory commit-
tee, which sets the salary for key staff,
including Taylor, to be disbanded, while
there will also be a review of the
coopted trustees of the PFA’s charity.
Portland PR sent out the letter from
Taylor yesterday. It read: “In 2018 the
PFA commissioned a wide-ranging In-
dependent Review designed to ensure
that we continue to evolve. We seek to
achieve the highest standards of gov-
ernance, transparency, accountability
and independence, and so we opened
ourselves up to independent examina-
tion. Now that the Independent Review
process has completed, I too will step
down, by the end of the season.”
Purkiss deserves most of the credit for
getting the PFA to this point. He went
to war with Taylor after the chief
executive attempted to oust
Purkiss, at the time a defender for
Walsall, on a technicality. Taylor
had told the 92 PFA club delegates
that the 2018 AGM had been
adjourned because of an
issue with the eligibility of
Purkiss to remain in his
position as chairman.
After Purkiss went
public more revelations
emerged about potential
breaches of trade union
regulations and issues
with PFA finances, which
prompted a Charity
Commission investigation
that is continuing.Matt Lawton
Chief Sports Correspondent
Life and times of PFA chief
Age 75
Club career Player for Bolton
Wanderers (1962-70), Birmingham
City (1970-76), Blackburn Rovers
(1976-78), Vancouver Whitecaps
(1977) and Bury (1978-80)
PFA career Became chief executive
of the organisation in 1981
Salary Up to £2.3 million a year, the
highest of any UK trade union bossTaylor is the highest-paid
union official in the UK