by Our Sports Desk

UPWARDS of 100 Football Association workers looked set to lose their jobs yesterday after the FA announced plans to slash annual spending by £30 million.

Both restructuring within the organisation and increasing investment across the board for all levels of football were claimed to be at the heart of the move — with a new Wembley Stadium refinancing agreement also helping to reduce outgoings.

The Premier League signed a staggering £5.1 billion TV deal at the back end of last season yet over 100 people will be offered either severance packages or be made redundant following a 45-day consultation as the FA attempts to tighten its purse strings.

The plans have been mapped out by both FA chairman Greg Dyke and chief executive Martin Glenn, with only the technical football department expected to be untouched by the changes.

“If The FA is to meet the emerging needs of football for at least the next 10 years we need to ensure that we prioritise and adopt the practices of leading edge organisations,” Glenn said in a statement.

“By investing now we protect the future. It’s about making hard choices about what activities we want to prioritise and what we pull back from. Quite simply England needs more football pitches and we need more and better coaches.”

“We have looked at other sporting organisations and similar national federations and we have found ourselves to be much larger in comparison when it comes to staff numbers, even withstanding our Wembley Stadium operation.

“The down side to this is that we are likely to have to lose a significant number of posts within The FA. It will be no reflection whatsoever on any of the individuals impacted during this period, but it is clear that the need for change is compelling.

“Pending a consultation we will hope to complete the organisational changes by the end of November and in doing so we want to be fair to those staff that may be affected.”