The unanimous vote by the eleven-member board to nominate David Bernstein as chairman of the Football Association heralds what many feel is a great new era for football in England. Even the man who was really the only other candidate for the position, David Dein, said that he knows and likes Bernstein and wishes him all success.
Bernstein certainly has impressive qualifications for the job. He took over the chairmanship of Wembley Stadium in 2008 at a time when the FA was at risk of defaulting on their £341.5 million bank loan. Working with the FA’s general secretary, Alex Horne, and with Roger Maslin, Wembley’s chief executive, Bernstein helped to negotiate a refinanced loan that eased the pressure.
Bernstein has extensive experience at several levels of English league football. He spent nine years as a Manchester City director, five of those years as chairman, and during his tenancy in that office the club regained Premier League status. As a chartered accountant, he has also spent many years on the boards of large companies, so he knows how corporate governance should be implemented.
The expectation seems to be that Bernstein will rise admirably to the challenges he will face, not least the less-than-cordial relationship between FA and Fifa following the World Cup vote. Bernstein, whose appointment may have been a surprise in Nyon and Zurich, said he knows he’ll have his job cut out for him trying to repair the rift, but he appears to be up to the task. He said he intends to work very hard to get a good grasp of the most pressing issues in the FA and the best way to deal with them.
Though the council still has to approve Bernstein’s nomination at its meeting on January 25th, there is little doubt that he will be dealing with those issues as of that date.