Charity inquiry says footballers' funds risked by conflicts, mismanagement
Money meant for former footballers was diverted into a connected union, with the regulator finding £1.9 million and rent income were put at risk before being repaid.
Money meant to support current and former professional footballers was put at risk after a charity spent years subsidising a connected trade union, paying about 80% of its annual operating costs under an informal arrangement, the Charity Commission said.
The body now known as The Players Foundation, and formerly The Professional Footballers’ Association Charity, was entered on the charities register on 11 January 2013. The regulator said a longstanding lack of separation between the charity and The Professional Footballers’ Association left funds intended for players in hardship exposed to conflicts of interest and serious mismanagement.
The commission said the charity paid about £6 million a year towards the union’s running costs, including about £5 million in staff salaries, while also allowing the union to occupy charity properties rent-free for more than a decade. It found that £1.9 million from the Football Association was transferred out of the charity’s bank account to the union without adequate explanation or governance, and that £627,000 in rent and interest was lost before both sums were repaid after concerns were raised.
The inquiry also said remuneration paid to people who served as trustees of both bodies was only transparently disclosed in charity accounts after the regulator intervened. The commission first opened a regulatory compliance case in November 2018 over concerns about the charity’s relationship with the union, then launched a statutory inquiry in December 2019. It issued an official warning on 7 September 2022 for mismanagement dating from incorporation in 2013 until the start of 2019.
Former trustee and finance director Darren Wilson was disqualified from acting as a trustee or senior manager at any charity for four years. The inquiry also noted the overlapping roles of Gordon Taylor, the long-serving PFA chief executive and charity trustee during much of the period under scrutiny, and Wilson, saying their links to both bodies intensified the conflict-of-interest concerns. Taylor stepped down from the charity’s board in 2021 and left the PFA that year.
The Players Foundation said it believed allegations of misconduct and breach of trust had been dropped. Its chair of trustees, Brendon Batson, said the problems were “honest mistakes” and that no beneficiary had been disadvantaged. The regulator’s findings, however, make clear that money meant to protect vulnerable footballers was exposed by governance failures at the very point those players were supposed to be safeguarded.
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