Football crazy…

 by New Worker correspondent

Readers turning to the New Worker hoping to seek relief from football are going to be disappointed. This week we have a look at the 2,158 strong Professional Footballer’s Association (PFA) which as its name implies is the trade union for football players in England and Wales. There is another similar, but separate PFA for Scotland.
     Professional football was grudgingly officially approved of by the Football Association League in 1886, who thought it was for public school boys only. However many churches and chapels had already set up amateur clubs to improve attendance at sermons. Employers found that forming a works team and buying them a football earned them a reputation as a good employer.
     The PFA was founded in 1907 making it the oldest union for sportsmen (and now with 84 women members). Starting life as the Association Football Players’ and Trainers’ Union, it was the successor to the short lived Association Footballers’ Union which lasted for only three years between 1898 and 1901.
     Both unions were established hoping to overturn the maximum wage, at that time £4 a week, a sum which many working class people would envy in those days.
     In the 1909-10 season the union threatened strike action, which resulted in the Football Association withdrawing recognition and banned members from the game. This resulted in membership falling as clubs recruited amateurs. Only at Manchester United did union members stand firm, but an Everton player was vocal in his support resulting in the union regaining recognition in exchange for allowing bonus payments to be made to players to supplement the maximum wage which then remained in place for decades.
     Just before the First World War a badly handled court case over the restrictive transfer scheme almost destroyed the union. For decades the proceeds of transfer payments went exclusively to clubs, which were in fact businesses.
     Membership fell to 300 in 1915 but doubled by 1920. Post-war unemployment saw attendance fall resulting in clubs in 1922 imposing a £1 cut to the maximum wage, (then £9 a week), a move defeated by the union in the courts.
     1955 saw the union affiliate to the Trades Union Congress, however, its registering under the Tory’s 1971 Industrial Relations resulting in it departing in 1973, but it re-joined in 1995 where it remains.
     While a player, the future TV commentator Jimmy Hill became secretary in 1956 and proved to be a new broom. In 1957 he launched a campaign to abolish the maximum wage (then £20), succeeding in 1961. The first £100 a week player resulted, paving the way for £100,000 a week players of today. We might deplore the commercialisation of sport, but unions exist for the benefit of their members.
     In 1963 the PFA secured a legal victory when the “retain and transfer system” was deemed an “unreasonable restraint of trade”.
     Football has always been a boys’ game. As recently as 1998 it hit the headlines when a players’ agent was turned away from the PFA’s annual dinner for the sin of being a woman, a blunder which cost the PFA dearly in terms of legal fees and reputation.
     In the course of its 114 year history it has only had seven leaders. It appointed a new Chief Executive, as its General Secretary is now called, former Swiss footballer and sports lawyer, Maheta Molango, earlier this year.
     He replace the former incumbent, Gordon Taylor OBE, whose reign began in 1981 and ended under a cloud earlier this year. Eyebrows had been raised about the fact that an arm of the PFA, its “charity” wing, had an income of £27 million, but spent only £2 million on “charitable activities”, a sum equal to the boss’s pay cheque. This has resulted in an ongoing enquiry by the Charity Commission. He was also criticised for being slow on the uptake on a number of issues such as supporting investigations into the large number of football players affected with dementia allegedly caused by heading the older heavier footballs.
     Taylor’s leadership was challenged in 2018 when 200 players told him to go. This he agreed to do the next year after overseeing an independent review of the organisation. This he finally did at the age of 75. He was one of the few trade union leaders who can be truly said to live on the same salary as the workers he represented. But that is only because some of his members earn over £100,000 a week. His salary was not modest: £2,290,000 a year at one stage, which almost certainly made him the highest paid trade union official in the world. Molango will have to scrape by on a measly £500,000 to begin with.
     Footballer players often have a bad image when they are photographed tumbling out of nightclubs at 4 am and driving off in £250,000 car, but that is a fairly recent development and needless to say not all are on £100,000 a week. Most are on a mere fraction of that. Only last week the union had to battle on behalf of its members at Swindon Town FC to simply secure 60 per cent of the wages due to them. This is a common enough experience in the lower leagues.
     Comparatively minor injuries can mean the end of a career, which even at the best of times is a short one. Therefore the union has a responsibility for its members beyond their playing life. Apart from supporting a “Football Scholarship Programme” and the “Football in the Community Programme” for would-be players, it also funds several education programmes for present and former players. Since 1991 it has supported players on a Salford University physiotherapy course. It also helps them get degrees in “Professional Sports Writing and Broadcasting” from Staffordshire University. Additionally it has also helped the cause of women’s football so that we can look forward to more women being photographed tumbling out of nightclubs at 4 am and driving off in new £250,000 cars etc.,
     For clapped out players it also funds a residential rehabilitation programme at Lilleshall Sports Injury Rehabilitation in Shropshire.
     The new boss, Maheta Molango has delivered a manifesto, saying: “One principle will guide my leadership of our union, and it is this: the PFA belongs to the players. It should always be run on behalf of its members, for its members”. Some would argue this promises a revolutionary change from Taylor’s day, but all trade union bureaucrats say that.

Putting the boot in

by New Worker correspondent

One of Britain’s oldest and most effective trade unions recently secured an important legal victory which could pave the way for workers they represent securing huge pay rises. The ruling overturns an attempt by the bosses to impose caps on workers’ earnings.
The issue in question was actually that which led to the creation of the union in 1907. For the union is the 4,000 strong TUC affiliated Professional Footballers' Association.
    Originally founded as the Association Football Players’ and Trainers’ Union (AFPTU) in Manchester’s Imperial Hotel it succeeded a short lived Association Footballers’ Union (AFU) formed in 1898 and dissolved in 1901. The AFU had tried and failed to relax restrictions on players moving from one club to another and to prevent bosses introducing a maximum wage of £4 per week for players in the Football League.
    Two years after its foundation, bosses, in the shape of the Football Association (FA) withdrew recognition of the Union, a threat of strike action in response was met by the FA banning altogether players belonging to the union. Membership fell as players put their jobs before their union card, but Manchester United players stood firm, forcing the cancellation of a 1909 match. A prominent player, Tim Coleman of Everton gave his support shaming the FA, which encouraged members to return to the union and forced the FA to allow bonus payments.However, a later botched court case on the transfer question nearly broke the union.
    During the slump in 1922 clubs arbitrarily cut the maximum wage from £9 to £8, a move successfully opposed by the union. But major successes had to wait until the 1950s.
    When Jimmy Hill, footballer and later commentator became secretary of the Players' Union in 1956, it became the PFA. In 1957, the League’s maximum wage of £20 was scrapped, and the first £100 a-week player came in 1961. The age of footballers making the front pages for their drunken antics in sunny climes and tumbling out of nightclubs at 4 am finally dawned.
    In 1963 the PFA won a High Court case which declared that the “retain and transfer” system was an unreasonable restraint of trade. The commercialisation of sport clearly has its downsides, but unions are primarily there to get good deals for their members.
    Never very militant the union registered under the Industrial Relations Act 1971, which caused its departure from the TUC, but it returned in 1995. In the late 1990s it found itself in court for banning a woman football agent from its annual dinner. The case eventually cost £200,000.To compensate it now actively promotes women footballers so that they can in future misbehave in posh hotels just like the men.
In the same spirit of promoting inclusion, last month the PFA pointed out that although Asian and Asian British people make up almost 7.5 per cent of the British population, in the 2019/2020 season just eight players made first-team appearances across the Premier. To remedy this it launched its Asian Inclusion Mentoring Scheme (AIMS).
    In November 2018 the PFA had a revolt from its members over its management practices,which is presently unresolved with the much complained about CEO still in post.
    On the matter of the present dispute PFA’s CEO, Gordon Taylor OBE no less, said: “We were disappointed that the EFL decided to introduce salary cap proposals, which were voted through without the proper consideration or consultation with the PFNCC. As a result, in August 2020, the PFA served a Notice of Arbitration on the EFL stating the introduction of the new rules were in breach of obligations under the constitution of the PFNCC. We are pleased the panel upheld the PFA’s claim".
Needless to say not all players are in the multi-millionaire category. Comparatively minor injury can end a playing career, which in the best cases comes to an end decades before the pension age. To help get non-playing players it funds several education programmes for ex and current players. One is a physiotherapy degree course at Salford University. Media-savvy footballers can even be taught to be sports journalists.
    In line with ancient trade union practice it provides medical care including paying for injured players to attend the Lilleshall Sports Injury Rehabilitation centre in Shropshire for physiotherapy and sports injury.
    PFA is also a campaigning union. Recently it took up the problem of racist abuse directed at black players. Unfortunately some football fans are like Trotskyites and SNP supporters in the level of abuse they hurl at their enemies. Writing to the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter it pointed out that “The language used is debasing, often threatening and illegal. It causes distress to the recipients and the vast majority of people who abhor racism, sexism and discrimination of any kind. We have had many meetings with your executives over the years but the reality is your platforms remain havens for abuse”.
    PFA demands that the social media giants block racist or discriminatory material with an approved verification process for users and they urge co-operating properly with the police in such matters.
    It is also demanded more research into neurodegenerative disorders as the affect footballers, an a issue recently highlighted by the fact that many prominent footballers from the 1960s and 70s have been diagnosed with dementia, perhaps caused by frequent heading of footballs which were much heavier than now. The PFA is now funding such research.