Should he stay or should he go?  Isn't it obvious?

Ryan McKnight, FC Business editor

By the time you read this one of two things will have happened. For the Director of Football Development at the FA, Sir Trevor Brooking, it will either be business as usual or he will have resigned and moved on. The question is can any of us blame him for doing either? The answer is simply no. There is more than a fair argument for him to resign out of principle, yet his patriotism and passion will probably see him stay and fight on.

I had originally arranged to see Trevor to discuss the recently published ‘Football Development Department Discussion for Coaching 2008-2012’ document. What was to happen over the following two weeks has led not only the tone of this piece changing but for the disharmony in the higher echelons of the FA and the rift between it and the Premier League and Football League to be finally publicly revealed.

The level of the disharmony is so concerning that I feel the consequences are far more reaching than anyone at Soho Square yet realises.

This story actually starts over a year ago at a lunch between Football League Chairman Lord Mawhinney and Trevor Brooking at the House of Lords. As the story goes, Lord Mawhinney had invited Brooking to offer a seat for the FA on the then newly formed Football League Trust. The Trust was to continue to take the FA investment for youth development and had already convinced the PFA and Premier League to have a single representative on the board. Brooking declined, citing that as a single representative he could not fully control the investment being made.

Fast forward a year and we have had the Burns report and the appointment - headed up by Mawhinney - of Lord Triesman as the first independent FA Chairman. Mihir Bose revealed in his BBC column that Triesman was said to be appalled that the FA still did not have representation on the Football League Trust and quickly sent in his Head of Governance, Jonathan Hall, to fill the void.

Brooking stood his ground on a simple matter of right and wrong that the FA should not be spending money on such an important topic as youth development and not have a clear and concise say in where it actually goes. The frustration of leagues being separate to their governing bodies has been at the heart of Brooking's frustrations since he entered the job – a situation totally unique to England and Brooking knows it.

So here I am in Sir Trevor’s office having just interviewed the FA’s Head of Coaching John Peacock on the release of the coaching discussion document. I couldn’t help but notice that Brooking looked stressed. His tie half pulled down, his face washed with disappointment, no doubt that he was about to talk to me about a document that he believes offers a lot of the answers to our quest of producing great players and coaches, yet is a document that wasn’t passed by his superiors and therefore is essentially null and void in terms of any finance being put behind it.

But what is this document that has caused so much press attention and even caused Lord Mawhinney to state that he had begun to “lose confidence” in Brooking. Well, in layman's terms, it is a blueprint of what needs to be done to develop coaches and players in this country to consistently compete for top honours, participate in domestic football en masse and justify the investment made.

The document is built around the idea of five pillars which are:

1. A world class FA coaching system
2. A first class coaching workforce
3. Enhanced and sustained support for coaches
4. Coaching as a profession
5. Research and development

I think it's an important thing to note at this point that I have not always been the biggest Brooking fan, but anyone who takes even a slight interest in youth development can see that we are in need of change. The above seems to represent five perfectly sensible areas that would, without doubt, improve the health of the footballing nation as a whole.

The document has been put together largely by Trevor and also John Peacock to firstly evidence some of the problems that exist in our game but then to offer what I believe are realistic paths to go a way towards fixing those issues.

Indeed, on the address that Sir Trevor makes in the document he states that “radical change and investment is required.” The words 'radical' and 'investment' are really taboo topics at Soho square and their use here should concentrate the mind immediately to the idea that Brooking is trying to galvanise and re-educate the FA power brokers.

“We couldn't get overall agreement to implement the document so it has been released as a discussion document,” he told me with an obvious sense of disappointment. I asked about the timing of this release, how long has it been in the pipe-line and what the reaction has been to it from the game itself.

“The issues discussed in the document have been critical ones for three years now. It's been over a dozen years since Howard [Wilkinson] introduced the charter for quality and it was time we moved things on again. The charter for quality improved things without doubt but the game is very different to what it was then and we need to revamp things.”

The whole topic is fuelled by the worrying downturn in home-grown players reaching first team level and the distinct lack of technical quality in those that do break through. This is a topic that has been done to death everywhere else and Trevor summed it up quite nicely anyhow.

“Arsene Wenger has always said to me that if I can deliver a player to him at sixteen who is as good technically as the foreign players then he would play the English lad every time because of the other attributes we inherently bring and possess. The problem is he says is that the gap is too big for clubs to do anything else but source the best technical players from elsewhere.”

So, on the surface, we have a discussion document that is there to explain how we can move forward. It seems however that the innuendo attached to it and the comments Trevor has made on the back of it, is the reason for the fiery out burst from Lord Mawhinney.

Brooking had claimed that England is falling behind its European and world counterparts and the FA had failed to implement an effective coaching infrastructure in which to yield these stars of the future. The frustration it seems is born out of the lack of finance being put forward to development.

“As a Governing body we are licensed by UEFA to deliver coach development so it should be coming from central costs, that's something the Chairman [Lord Triesman] is looking at now.

“I'm hugely frustrated because, despite of all the money in our game, we're still not committing enough to the priorities - player and coach development. Compared to abroad we are thousands of coaches behind.

“Other Governing bodies, such as France, have total control of this area. Here it is mainly driven by the two leagues [the Premier League and the Football League]. In League One you don't even need a Level One qualification to be the coach.”

Trevor, who by this time was indeed showing his emotions attached to the situation, laid down exactly the extent of the problem: “In terms of specialist coaches for the five to eleven age group I have got one coach for the 92 clubs. It's nowhere near enough.”

The finance required to implement the ideas in the 'Discussion Document' would be around an additional 2.5 million to the investment already established.

“The Professional Game board [PGB] didn't approve it so we have to look else where. It's the PGB who makes the decisions on this and I am not in a position to comment on their decisions. I haven't ever been to one of their meetings and I find that strange."

What?! Firstly, does anyone else find it strange that the Head of Football Development isn't on this board? I could understand if it was already staffed by world class technical coaches but it isn't. The fact is that the only football person at the FA is Trevor Brooking. Our game is now in the hands of politicians when we actually need technical football people supported by the likes of Triesman. Surely people can see that?

By this point it was clear that the frustrations Trevor is experiencing are both well documented but also a personal weight on his shoulders. One of our favourite footballing sons has now found himself in a world he can't understand. I feel a huge amount of sympathy for him and the other Football Development staff at the FA. They must live with the daily pressure of being the home of football and knowing that England expects, all without the resource and power to do anything about it.

“One thing I said to Richard Lewis was that you can't have this tripartite agreement [between the FA, Premier League and the Football League] when it comes to coach and player development. The two leagues argue a lot on certain topics but they are united that the FA should not be the quality assurer.

“I said get the PFA, LMA and the PFCA involved and on the board as well. Yes, we would be one of six then but I feel these other organisations will have the best interests of the game at heart and be closer to us on more topics.

"I have never been comfortable with us giving what is now eight million to the Football League Trust to distribute between themselves. I think we should control where that money goes."

You can't help but agree with him when you think that some of this money is being used to source young players overseas when our sons here are left in the wilderness.

Brooking takes solace that the people working in the game on a coaching level agree with him:

“For me the issue of coaching and player development is the biggest challenge we face. Yes we've got money at the moment but clubs, leagues and governing bodies need to realise that in the long term it's your local community that provides sustainability.

"It's the home of your fans, your local players, everything that your club is built on. We've lost sight of that. The people working on the ground believe in this document and its suggestions and that means a great deal to me.”

So, if we now return to Lord Mawhinney's comments which include:

- "The scatter gun approach of his [Brooking's] criticism is seriously starting to undermine our confidence in him";
- "Sir Trevor has been banging on about this for two-and-a-half years";
- "Somebody has to ask themselves why nobody has responded to him, including his employers, but I can tell you the Football League is running out of patience with him"

And thus I think you'll find the problem. This is a technical issue that needs to be resolved by experienced, technical people and funded and supported by the power brokers. Lord Mawhinney and co [the Premier League] may think they are supporting youth development but on what basis, experience or technical ability are they making these assumptions?

Should he stay or go? The answer is simply that we need him to stay. This is the Football Association we are talking about and he is the most senior of too few football people at that organisation. If Lord Mawhinney can live with England falling further behind the rest of the world and a complete deconstruction of the domestic game then maybe we should start to lose our confidence in him.