Premier League's Richard Scudamore is shaken but faces sternest test yet
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Version 0 of 1. In 15 years overseeing the growth of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore has negotiated, plotted, schemed and charmed his way through some difficult situations as the English top flight has continued its exponential rise. But on Monday, at the hands of one of his closest allies in the game, he will face perhaps his sternest personal test. The slow-burning row over sexist jokes and depressingly puerile remarks about a colleague, exchanged in private with a City lawyer who referred to women as "gash" and leaked to a newspaper by a former temporary PA, has threatened to turn into a major scandal, with Saturday's comments from Heather Rabbatts, the Football Association's only female director, that the Premier League has a "closed culture of sexism" the most devastating contribution yet. Scudamore, to his loyal supporters, is the man who has helped transform English football – making it one of the country's most attractive and lucrative exports. To his detractors, of whom there are also many, he has presided over an era of huge revenue growth that has failed to benefit the wider game. From seeing off the threat of European regulation that would have cut the value of the broadcasting deals that have underpinned the League's growth to shaping the sometimes petty and often vindictive politics of English football, Scudamore has reigned supreme. The former newspaper executive, married with five children, has been handsomely rewarded. Yet the clubs – sharing in a £5.5bn broadcasting bonanza over three years – believe he is worth every penny. He was paid £1.9m in 2012-13, and in 2010 was awarded a £2.8m bonus for concluding a round of broadcast deals. His bonus for the current £5.5bn harvest has not been revealed. Scudamore and a small cabal of trusted and fiercely loyal colleagues have run rings around the FA and Football League while creating a product that keeps hundreds of millions of viewers gripped across the globe. For many years, the speculation within the game has been over when he will decide that he has had enough and call it a day on his own terms, but the events of the past week could yet leave him unable to choose the manner of his departure. It has sparked a wide-ranging debate about everything from the gap between the public and private lives of influential leaders to the nature of sexism in football and the modern workplace. From whether sexism should be judged on the same terms as racism to the best model of governnance for a sporting competition that has become much more than that. But it also threatens to leave a stain on Scudamore's own reputation. In the wake of the Sunday Mirror story, the atmosphere at the Premier League's headquarters in Gloucester Place has been gloomy and Scudamore, who has apologised for the views expressed in the emails while registering his dismay that they were made public, is said to have been severely shaken. The Premier League audit and remuneration committee which will consider the matter is not exactly a brutal firing squad. If Scudamore were to hand-pick his inquisitors, and some suggest that is not too far from the truth, then he could hardly choose a quartet more similar in outlook and philosophy. Chaired by Bruce Buck, the urbane Chelsea chairman with whom he goes shooting, the committee consists of the self-made millionaire and Stoke City chairman, Peter Coates, the former Blackburn Rovers chairman John Williams and the former Manchester United chief executive David Gill, now a Uefa executive committee member. It has been described as a "hearing" but in reality the meeting had been scheduled anyway and Scudamore normally attends. The danger for the Premier League, which has sought to emphasise that due process is being followed, is that it looks like the perpetuation of a cosy boy's club. Reform of the Premier League "board" – in reality just Scudamore and acting chairman Peter McCormick (standing in for the ill Anthony Fry) – has long been a priority. Now that there is such intense public scrutiny of the case, the quartet on the committee know that they have to be seen to take it seriously. That, together with the fact that Gill, Buck and Williams have their own reputations to protect, makes for an intriguing cocktail. Their recommendation will be passed to the 20 Premier League clubs to consider at their summer meeting in Harrogate on 5-6 June. In the meantime, the FA's inclusion advisory board, chaired by Rabbatts and set up to advise on equality issues in the wake of the convulsions that seized English football after the Luis Suárez and John Terry racism affairs, will meet on Tuesday. Much may depend on whether the verdict passed down on Monday, together with Scudamore's response, is acceptable to those campaign groups that have relentlessly called for Scudamore to face a proper inquiry. Whether or not the Bristol City fan's bawdy views are a hanging offence in themselves is open to debate but, as is so often the case, it is the fallout from the row and what it reveals about the way the Premier League is run that threatens to do more damage. Scudamore was in danger of appearing defensive and grudging in his initial apology, emailing club chairmen to effectively rally their support and turning the focus on the PA who leaked the offensive messages. His supporters insist he is more of a force for good than evil, pointing to the way the lifelong Bristol City fan has led clubs to consensus around youth development and maintained investment in grassroots facilties when the FA and the government cut theirs. Those who have found themselves on the receiving end of his wrath, or who feel the Premier League personifies many of the modern game's ills, most certainly do not. By turns charming and ruthless, and for all that those close to him insist he is not nearly as all-powerful as his persona suggests, Scudamore has become the master of all he surveys. Now his goal will be not only to maintain the support of the 20 Premier League clubs, referred to as shareholders under the League's constitution, but to reverse the tide of public opinion. To date he has done the former through a steady flow of billions of pounds, as well as an increasingly sophisticated central marketing and broadcasting operation. Whether those same clubs are best placed to sit in judgment on the man who keeps their cash registers ringing is just one concerning element of what has become a moral minefield for a man not normally troubled by self-doubt. |