Giving youth a chance

Scudamore finds respite from legal battles in grass roots, reports our correspondent

Russell Kempson

It had been a trying day for Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the FA Premier League, as he attempted to unravel the legal validity of Sheffield United’s challenge to their relegation. Exhaustive talks with league lawyers had taken a toll. Later, it would continue. M’learned friends are never satisfied.

Yet for two hours of respite from the Yorkshire club’s posturing, Scudamore could allow his mind to wander. The shrieking of the boys and girls teams that fought out the finals of the Premier League Schools Tournament at Old Trafford on Friday was an oasis of calm for Scudamore.

“This is what it’s all about,” he said, gazing around the “Theatre of Dreams”. “I read comments from observers of the game that we are not ‘connecting’ with the grass roots but I would contest that. We’re reaching more people and more pervasively than ever before and in all sorts of ways. Our clubs also do huge amounts of community work, with projects on education, health, crime reduction. And that’s nothing to do with even kicking a football.”

Alan Wiley, the referee, and his top-flight colleagues – Peter Walton, Phil Dowd and Mike Dean – lead the players out on to the hallowed turf. Sir Bobby Charlton, the Manchester United director, performs the draw and gasps as he pulls out United against Manchester City. “Don’t forget,” he reminds the excited kids. “It may be a once in a lifetime chance to play at one of the top grounds in the world.”

Parents gee up their offspring. “Claudia. No fear,” a father warns. “Becky. Nice and strong,” a mother says. Another asks if they had met Charlton. “I thought we had,” the girl replies, “but it was just an old man with a bald head.”

After eight years in the job, Scudamore should have lost his hair, but has not. The product he presides over, the Barclays Premiership, appears healthy, too.

“TV audiences around the world are up and attendances also up by about 1½ per cent in total,” he said. “We have an average of more than 34,000 and occupancy up to 92 per cent. Interest in our league is improving and, with the new TV deal kicking in next season, that should keep us in our elevated position.

“We’ve still got to make sure the fans want to come through the turnstiles. Ticket prices? We don’t centrally govern that, it’s an individual issue for the clubs and they’re taking it very seriously. They are aware of their responsibility to keep whole groups of people enfranchised.”

The end of Chelsea’s two-year reign as top dogs is good for business. “If the league champions keep rotating, that’s great,” Scudamore said. “And if clubs coming up and going down rotate, that’s great also. That’s the game.

“The season and the football has been brilliant. I went to a lot of games and I don’t think I went to a dull one. And the relegation struggle, with Wigan winning at Sheffield on the last day to stay up. It was Shakespearian. If you wrote a novel, people would read it and not believe it.”

Three English clubs reaching the last four of the Champions League, though none could win the competition, is a source of Premier League pride. Similarly, the run of Tottenham Hotspur to the Uefa Cup quarter-finals.

Yet the thorn of Sheffield United still prickles and the shadow of the “Carlos Tévez Affair” lingers. Anyone from Bramall Lane turning up at the Premier League annual meeting on Thursday and Friday is likely to be refused entry. Their membership of the elite ended with the Wigan defeat.

“The issue was dealt with by an independent commission in accordance with our rules and we were entirely satisfied with the process,” Scudamore said wearily. An arbitration panel will give the final verdict.

Back at the grass roots, Scudamore presents the prizes. St Jude’s C of E Primary School, representing Portsmouth, won the under-11 boys final; St Joseph’s High School and Sports College, for Bolton Wanderers, the under-13 girls.

Scudamore is all smiles but a return to reality is imminent. M’learned friends are waiting.