Dear Members,
You will find a comprehensive review of our recent activities and achievements in my Chief Executive Report, and I want to thank our extraordinary staff for their tireless efforts to support our current and former members, especially during these very difficult times.
In this letter, I would like to report on something profound that has been happening at the PFA, which will have a lasting and positive impact on our future.
As you know, in 2018 the PFA commissioned a wide-ranging Independent Review designed to ensure that we continue to evolve appropriately for our members. We seek to achieve the highest standards of governance, transparency, accountability, and independence, and so we opened ourselves up to independent examination and invited scrutiny of all our work and our structures.
This Independent Review was a significant and lengthy process, concluding only in July 2020.
At the heart of the Independent Review is a set of detailed recommendations on how the PFA might evolve in the future. Details of the recommendations which we are progressing – and the changes they will bring in - are set out for members in this document.
In the space of just a few short months since July the Management Committee has worked hard to implement these recommendations. You will find in this document a summary of the substantial progress that we have already made towards their implementation.
The Independent Review proposes that a new governance structure is created for the PFA. We have worked hard to create that new structure, and Delegates of the Professional Footballers’ Association will be asked to approve new rules to govern the PFA at our AGM. The proposed new rules can be found on the Members’ Site.
Under the new structure, the Management Committee will hand over to a Players’ Board and an Operational Board, and we will be inviting nominations for members to join the Players’ Board. Those members will be instrumental in taking forward the PFA under our new structure, and I hope you will consider whether you would wish to play a leadership role in our future.
As I announced at our previous AGM, now that the Independent Review process has completed, I too will step down, by the end of the current season. A new Chief Executive will be elected following the recruitment procedure recommended by the Independent Review, and we have already made substantial progress in that direction. I will of course be available in the future whenever needed to support the PFA.
I am proud to have been part of the Management Committee’s hard work to design these new Rules and to implement the Independent Review’s other recommendations. I commend our proposed new structure to you. It is the gold standard for any modern sporting organisation and a foundation on which I believe our organisation will continue to go from strength to strength in the years to come.
Gordon Taylor OBE
Downloads: Recommendations and Progress
- Recommendations: click here
- Progress Report: click here