Emile Heskey Reveals Desire to Become the Next FA Chairman
By Ali Rampling
Former England forward Emile Heskey has revealed that he would like to take up the role as the next FA Chairman following the resignation of Greg Clarke.
Clarke stepped down on Tuesday after making a series of offensive comments about black, Asian and ethnic minority people, the LGBT community and women during an appearance in front of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee.
Heskey, who currently works as an ambassador for Leicester City Women and helped launch football consultancy business Player 4 Player in October, revealed that he was targeting the top job, but admitted the role would probably go to someone from outside of football.
“You have to take that leap sometimes,” Heskey told the i newspaper. “I know within football I’m probably just as respected as anyone else. But you’d have different people within there who would stake a claim as well.
"I would be very surprised if it [the FA chairman] was a black person. I’d be very surprised if it was anyone within football right now. I think there’s a network of people they tap into that doesn’t have anything to do with football and they’ll try to bring someone from there.
We can confirm that Greg Clarke has stepped down from his role as our chairman.
— The FA (@FA) November 10, 2020
Peter McCormick will step into the role as interim FA Chairman with immediate effect and the FA Board will begin the process of identifying and appointing a new chair in due course.
"It would be lovely to have someone in football. Then people would understand the person at the top. It’s a football person, who has been within football, whether they played or not, understands football, gets it, knows what drives it, and then drives the association forward positively. Someone within football can do that.”
On Tuesday, Aston Villa defender Tyrone Mings said having a black PFA chairman would be a 'huge step forward' for racial equality, but stressed that providing equal opportunities was most important, and Heskey echoed these sentiments.
“It would be powerful. It would send messages. It’s been called for, for a long time," the former Liverpool forward said.
"We’re not just saying head of the FA, we’re talking about [black people] being in the boardroom and being able to influence decisions and recruitment. When you look at the FA, when you look at all the squads and teams, it’s only now they’re starting to put black coaches in every age group.
“But every age group has always been either 50-50 or maybe swaying a little bit more, especially the youth teams, to having more black players. Not so long ago the Under 21s played against Turkey, nine of the 11 starting line-up were black.
"We’ll celebrate that but then you won’t have any black coaches, you won’t have any black staff at all. We can’t say there aren’t any out there. We’ve got to look at why they aren’t getting a chance."