20-06-2017, 13:16
The ultimate irony of the wad of proposed changes to our game which have found their way to FIFA's august and incorruptible top table is their source - David Elleray.
An Oxford Graduate and former public school housemaster you'd hardly expect Mr Elleray to be in serious need of re-education, but it 2014, the year he was also honoured by the Queen that was the derisory verdict of the FA following remarks made in public by this former referee.
Chairman of the Kick It Out campaign Lord Ouseley described it as “unacceptable” that the Football Association’s decided to issue the then referees’ chairman David Elleray with only a “slap on the wrists” for making racist comments to another official. Lord Ouseley, founder of English football’s leading anti-racism group and a former FA Council member, accused the FA of “brushing off” Elleray’s behaviour, and insisted there should be a full investigation into his conduct.
Elleray, despite both an Oxford degree and an honorary doctorate, years of teaching experience amongst multi-racial students was thought by the FA only to be in need of only a TRAINING COURSE!
Elleray, who, as chairman of the FA’s referees committee got roles within both Fifa and Uefa, made offensive comments in plain hearing to Robert McCarthy, a black non-League referee coaching manager, at a meeting at St George’s Park. Elleray was heard to say “you looked rather tanned” and ask “have you been down a coal mine?” to McCarthy.
As with his failure to accept the opinion of a linesman and award Chesterfield a goal, which cost the club an historic Wembley appearance, Mr Elleray later apologised for his crass racist remarks just as he'd earlier done for his own refereeing.
Now he has the arrogance to imagine his ideas on the future of football (he was in any case a keen rugby player himself!) should be taken seriously. Innately impressed by the posh and schoolmasterly, football will lack the sense to take this inflated ego, deflate it and publicly kick him and his ideas into grass so long that he'll never find his way out.
An Oxford Graduate and former public school housemaster you'd hardly expect Mr Elleray to be in serious need of re-education, but it 2014, the year he was also honoured by the Queen that was the derisory verdict of the FA following remarks made in public by this former referee.
Chairman of the Kick It Out campaign Lord Ouseley described it as “unacceptable” that the Football Association’s decided to issue the then referees’ chairman David Elleray with only a “slap on the wrists” for making racist comments to another official. Lord Ouseley, founder of English football’s leading anti-racism group and a former FA Council member, accused the FA of “brushing off” Elleray’s behaviour, and insisted there should be a full investigation into his conduct.
Elleray, despite both an Oxford degree and an honorary doctorate, years of teaching experience amongst multi-racial students was thought by the FA only to be in need of only a TRAINING COURSE!
Elleray, who, as chairman of the FA’s referees committee got roles within both Fifa and Uefa, made offensive comments in plain hearing to Robert McCarthy, a black non-League referee coaching manager, at a meeting at St George’s Park. Elleray was heard to say “you looked rather tanned” and ask “have you been down a coal mine?” to McCarthy.
As with his failure to accept the opinion of a linesman and award Chesterfield a goal, which cost the club an historic Wembley appearance, Mr Elleray later apologised for his crass racist remarks just as he'd earlier done for his own refereeing.
Now he has the arrogance to imagine his ideas on the future of football (he was in any case a keen rugby player himself!) should be taken seriously. Innately impressed by the posh and schoolmasterly, football will lack the sense to take this inflated ego, deflate it and publicly kick him and his ideas into grass so long that he'll never find his way out.
