FA give Scudamore plan extra time

A queue of MPs were lining up to put the boot in at a Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee meeting on Wednesday, where the Premier League plan being championed by its chief executive, Richard Scudamore, was variously described as 'daft', 'completely barmy', 'bent', 'fatally flawed' and 'the worst idea ever'.

Even Scudamore admitted for the first time that he needed the support of FIFA, the FA and Football League to make his castigated initiative work.

The FA high command have been having major internal discussions over whether to apply the coup de grace as the game's ruling body or allow Scudamore and cohorts the opportunity to at least refine their trashed blueprint and explain it themselves to Blatter in Zurich next week.

Despite the almost unanimous resistance to Project Scudamore around the FA board, including from Manchester United's David Gill among the Premier League representatives, the FA will allow it a small period of breathing space to find sustainable answers' to all the issues surrounding it.

Lord Triesman told the Select Committee that the FA's major concerns centre around fixture congestion, the opposition of FIFA and other international federations and especially how it will impact on England's 2018 World Cup bid, the symmetry-wrecking 39th match, any negative effect on the FA Cup and the performance of the national team and the opinion of fans.

Scudamore talked yesterday about developing his brainchild until a proper evaluation could be made by January 2009. The FA's timescale before they reach their judgment day is more likely to be just two months.

Triesman and Scudamore, who had a good five-minute chat between themselves before the meeting, significantly more than the 30 seconds Scudamore referred to later, also clashed over Blatter's big idea to have six English-qualified players in every Premier League starting line-up by 2011.

Scudamore called it 'a nonsense that flies in the face of European law', but Triesman wants 'a long, hard, cold, look' at a quota arrangement that would help England become one of the best sides in the world 'and not be frightened off by some lawyers'.

Scudamore, bearing up remarkably well after more than a week of incessant personal attacks, said: "Clearly we are not going to take this forward if it in any way does not meet with some form of acquiescence from FIFA. The FA and the Football League will also have to be comfortable. If it is deemed not to be worth it, we will think again about our global expansion. But it's certainly not a dead duck."

However, Select Committee members begged to differ. Philip Davies (Conservative MP for Shipley) called it: 'A daft proposal, the worst idea I've ever heard', Mike Hall (Lab, Weaver Vale): 'Fatally flawed, completely barmy', Alan Keen (Lab, Feltham and Heston): 'Perfect competition being bent'.

Scudamore, understandably took exception to Keen's 'bent' comment but the MP later explained that he meant 'distorted' rather than something more sinister.