“The Football Association is a fantastic organisation and until you’re inside it is very difficult to understand or get a full sense of its magnitude. Rcently I glanced back at the presentation I did for the second interview of this job. I’d shadowed the document with a serious tone as I attempted to explain what I perceived the FA to be, in the context of British and world football; and of course what I thought I could contribute. Upon reading it back I realised it was a pretty thin piece of work.

Essentially, you can’t get a real sense of this size of this organisation – or any other football power, be that a commercial enterprise, a league committee, a football club, or a turf manufacturer – until you’re actually in it.

The impact of what we do and the importance of this game, is that we are the cogs in a massively dynamic industry, and a hugely emotive subject for people. No-one gets involved in football passively. They enter into this marvellous and maddening sport actively or emotionally, or both. They become immersed in the world’s most newsworthy social activity, and a colossal commercial enterprise that still screams of potential at every angle.

My own personal achievements over the time I have been here have been stability and growth. They are big things, key factors, no matter what you do. I came to an organisation where I felt that the staff needed a sense of somebody leading from the front. That can seem easier said than done in any aspect of our business but I do hope that I have offered the sport a sense of guidance, and growth; we are, after all, a business.

Football has an absolutely remarkable history which goes back the best part of 150 years. Attendances at matches have always been astounding, and we know of the profound impact the sport has always had on peoples’ lives.

It would be right to say that in the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, the mid 1980’s brought a dip in its popularity. Hooliganism reared its head, and there were some desperately sad and tragic issues to contend with such as Heysel and Hillsborough. Generally, the game was losing its way a bit, and there was a feeling that negative or sinister elements were establishing themselves within the populous.

Compare that to now. Football is a new invention, commercial dynamite, an entertainment sponge, and enjoyed by a broader social spectrum than ever before. In the UK, more people play football than every other sport put together. That’s men, women, kids, and families. Everyone is involved, and the transformation across every aspect is there for all to see.

It is because of these safer environments – physically, in the stadia that football now boasts, and metaphorically, with families feeling safe and relaxed at grounds – that football and business now go hand-in-hand so effortlessly.

I believe the Football Association has is some very lucrative commercial properties, of which the England team has always been and will always be the most attractive. Every national side across the planet carries with it a pure yet expansive density of newsworthiness.

With England, let us suppose we played an international friendly last Wednesday. It would still be in the press this week, and we were reading about if for the previous seven days before we played the match. So in news noise, the England team is phenomenal.

During the World Cup last year in Germany – and it goes without saying we were disappointed with where we ended up in terms of the competition – the news noise and the commercial awareness behind it was phenomenal. Any attachment you can get with or alongside the England team as a commercial organisation must be very lucrative, and this is fast becoming the realisation on a global scale for any international side, no matter what their rank. Commercial and supporter association is a very robust thing, and they sit as factors largely unaffected by the relative success (or otherwise) of the team on the pitch.

Nearly 60,000 people turned up at Old Trafford on a freezing early February night when England hosted Spain in a friendly, and the peak British television audience – without factoring in those watching in pubs and bars – was 8.3 million people. That’s Coronation Street, that’s X-Factor, that’s Dancing on Ice, and that’s football.

Our other key asset is the FA Cup, and I sense we have kicked off a new era in the competition now it is back at its spiritual home. We get used to saying it, and it is so easy to trip it off the tongue, but it really is the best-loved domestic Cup competition in world football.

Despite that, in today’s football market it would be wrong to think it hasn’t had to work hard to find a new place in terms of the football fixture hierarchy. But it has managed to achieve this, and it continues on its journey.

Turning around remarkable audience figures, it is a commercial property that is able to attract a £32million sponsorship deal from Eon. Yet despite that, and its Wembley return, people still speak of the magic fading. Would Eon think that?

Would the statisticians who tell me that the average attendance in the 3rd Round this season just gone was the highest for 25 years think that? I know some people are offended by the FA Cup showing a more definite lean towards money and marketing but it has always been a commercial property. In our prime sponsor, Eon, and the tremendous television partners we have had in the past, and will have in the future in the shape of Sky and Setanta, we are lucky to be able to work with very strong and important associates.

They are delighted to be associated with one of this country’s iconic elements, and lets not forget, so are the beneficiaries of the money – from the winners, to Cup giantkillers, right down to grassroots clubs. Conclusively, the better the exposure the FA Cup brings, the better it is for the entire game.

Commercially, the Cup is a ninemonth proposition, and whilst you cannot rival the Final for a showpiece event, the semi-finals and other stages of the competition can offer a greater unfolding of drama and emotion. We have all sat up late at night watching a live televised replay going to extra-time or being settled on penalties – fantastic entertainment. They may not be for supporters, but for television these matches are a dream, with a late night captive audience. Having been a broadcaster myself, I know the commercial value of a game that ends on penalties. (I used to say I wished games would start with penalties!) The Cup always has been, and will continue to be, about the smaller clubs – it’s the level playing field that they can achieve nowhere else. The figures speak for themselves; there are 20 clubs in the Premier League and at least 36,000 other ones, so I have to be as interested in Tiverton as I am Tottenham.

And I believe that anyone involved commercially in the game should experiment with football at all levels.

Take the Burton Albion versus Manchester United FA Cup tie in 2006. A problematic fixture for Alex Ferguson’s men, but for the Brewers, the most famous game in their history, with the replay at Old Trafford and associated television money funding their entire wage bill for a year.

The FA Cup, like any competition that has been going for 126 years, will have good seasons, bad seasons, and average seasons, and you can’t tell what it’s going to be until the end of the tournament. And of course, every competition has to fight for the right to exist in the modern football calendar, and must push its weight unrelentingly.

The Football Association are not blind. In terms of attendances, there have been matches where seats haven’t been filled, an issue across all of football.

The governing body combined with the clubs hold the responsibility to look at that and see if there is a practical way forward, whether that’s the repositioning of the brand, the lowering of ticket prices, or something else. The end goal is the same for all and equally important from the standpoint of both the businessman and consumer, and that is to make sure as many people get to see football as possible and seats are filled

The Cup – a knockout competition that fills only a fraction of the football calendar yet touches billions – says a lot about the power of football and the strength of the message, coexisting as it does around a mass of other commercial opportunities.

You’re always dealing with phenomenal numbers with football, on all sides. The Football Association looks after 500,000 volunteers and 37,000 clubs, most with any number of other teams. So you’re looking at a subject matter which touches the lives of a colossal number of people, whether they’re playing, refereeing, coaching, administrating, or just watching like I do these days. So if you’re commercially smart and sensitive, and choose to connect yourself with football, you’re associating yourself with something that is almost a route one to public consciousness.

The British government and those elsewhere ought to do more to recognise that. They are slowly beginning to see football, and sport in general, as a huge delivery mechanism on health, education, and social inclusion – all of those issues that are prevalent in society. Maybe they need to recognise more the fact that the game gets in to more difficult areas than authority figures will ever be able to infiltrate and influence.

That impact ensures it is a hugely attractive proposition for business interest. The likes of Umbro, Carlsberg, McDonalds and others are all top class companies who want to be associated with the football brand and its community endorsement.

And in Wembley, there are more opportunities. I have gone on record as saying it is the best stadium in the world. It has been on a journey that we have all had to experience, but we are there now and the commercial elements of that stunning building gives Wembley a great chance to provide the foundations for a new era of English football. Yes, it has come with a tag and a reputation, but people forgot about that as soon as the first ball was kicked, and you can bet Manchester United and Chelsea fans weren’t mulling over how long it took to build during the FA Cup Final. No.

We’re over all of that – the stadium is alive no-one is thinking of the legacy that its construction threatened to leave behind. People are staggered by it, and it is something of which we should be hugely proud.

Pride is sewn into the very fabric of football, and the issues of supporter respect and concern have been raised with the ownership issue more than any other over the past season. I wouldn’t use the word ‘concern’. The ownership of clubs, grounds, players, companies is prevalent in most aspects of football now. Why shouldn’t we accept that?

Firstly, you can’t separate on the grounds of nationality, and the potential of discrimination has been a dangerous attachment to foreign investment.

Secondly, for ownership of clubs, football is very heavily regulated through a number of measures governing bodies have undertaken, including the Fit And Proper Person test’.

Ownership is a trend, and an interesting and fascinating one. It could well be that in ten years time we’ll be able to say it was a very positive trend, it was a transitory trend, or that it was a shortterm trend. All we can do is make sure that people who seek to become involved in the game pass the appropriate criteria that we lay out in front of them. From the FA’s point of view – we want people to indulge themselves in the history and the heritage of the game, and its social importance.

Around the time of the Manchester United takeover, the Glazier brothers were invited to sit in my office just so that the Chief Executive of the Football Association could tell them in a very polite and courteous way that this whole thing is tremendously important; that Manchester United is important, and that it’s emblematic to the game – and they got it. We’re constantly raising the bar, making life more difficult for those who come into the game for anything other than proper reasons. People care. So fans and the media are entitled to be protective.

We’ve heard similar concern over the appointment of Michel Platini as UEFA President. A fantastic footballer, an excellent coach, as well as a strong and forthright football man, he has his own views on how he wants to take UEFA forward with potential plans to reduce the number of Champions League places from four to three.

But these are nothing more than ideas, which come packaged with many other plans and objectives, so lets take on his appointment as an opportunity, not a threat. We will engage in dialogue with him over the coming months, as we have been doing already, and all for the good of the game.

While we may achieve moral statements from owners who are honest and genuine, football clubs are really quite tough things to attain and run.

Concerns at United and most other clubs still exist. It is for the sake of all clubs that the FA houses its own Financial Advisory Unit – a set of accountants who undertake cycles of the top six levels of the game, going in to clubs and offering advice over best practice and best financial management, be that guidance on balancing the books, turnover-to-wages rulings, minimal wage legislation, pay-as-you-earn, or anything else.

The end goal is to help clubs prevent themselves from stumbling towards financial difficulty. We have learned the hard way with the likes of Leeds United and Bradford City who have both slipped a further rung down the ladder this season. Our team have now visited every outfit in the top six tiers of football and they will begin revisiting those who still need help.

The pursuit of glory or survival will always lead some clubs to live beyond their means. It’s prevalent, and it’s part of any industry. If the money in the game is used wisely, with the hope and expectation that it is driven back into communities, then it’s market demand. And the market keeps on demanding more football.