The FA Cup may have lifted the spirits, yet outrageously there is still no word from a sponsor.

Try as they have, the Football Association can't tempt a commercial backer despite the bundles of banknotes from bookies to brewers, moneylenders to motor manufacturers being shovelled into the ever-deepening pockets of most other aspects of the game.

Football truly needs to search its soul.

It is a game I grew up with, being weaned on it journalistically as a club reporter on local and provincial newspapers.

Indeed, it was the FA Cup which gave me one of my fondest career memories.

I was working for weekly newspaper in South London in 1959 when the local amateur club, Tooting and Mitcham United from the then Isthmian League, provided one of the great giant-killing feats by successively defeating Bournemouth and Northampton Town in the first two rounds before drawing 2-2 at home with First Division side Nottingham Forest (I still claim they were robbed of a sensational victory by the ref awarding a dodgy penalty!)

"The Tooting Terrors", we labelled them, although inevitably they lost in the replay.

Later, when in Fleet Street, I covered hundreds of top matches, among them the 1966 World Cup and several others, often enjoying the company of great men such as Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton in days when we hacks could have a friendly beer and banter with players.

But my love of the game has, in recent years, turned to acute disenchantment as gradually it has become one which places itself beyond the rules designed for the rest of us.

It is now infested by greed, self-aggrandisement and squalid, slack-jawed laddishness.

More sleazeball than football.

Nowadays, despite the sort of occasional FA Cup rainbow we saw last weekend it remains blighted by dysfunctional leadership and blind-eyed incompetence from FIFA downwards.

Radical surgery is required but will we get it? Breath should not be held, particularly when it comes to sorting the sordid side of the game.

Greg Dyke has overseen many controversies during his tenure in charge of the English Football Association, including the Ched Evans saga ©Getty Images



Take as an example the deafening silence of the FA and Premier League over the Ched Evans affair.

There may well be a case for the redemption of the convicted Sheffield United rapist, whose return while on licence from prison has been ultimately rejected by three clubs, but whether he should be back in the public eye as a footballer is open to question.

And it is one that needs an answer from the game's authorities.

The attitude of Evans' prospective father-in-law is equally puzzling. If a boyfriend of any daughter of mine had behaved as Evans did in that Rhyl hotel room, whether or not actual rape was involved, I would not want him in the house, let alone try to facilitate the resurrection of his career.

And while the FA may have temporarily suspended Wigan Athletic owner Dave Whelan for remarks deemed to be racist they, and the Premier League, seem to have washed their hands over the case of the manager he hired, Malky Mackay, and his undisputed involvement while at Cardiff City in texts that were both sexist and homophobic.

Reports suggest he will walk away without punishment.

As indeed did the Premier League chief himself, Richard Scudamore, when it was revealed he had exchanged emails with a pal that were adolescently sexist and grossly insulting to women.

Instead he was given a vote of confidence after admitting "an error of judgement".

Scudamore's temporary PA, who exposed the emails, has described the Premier League as being "institutionally sexist...an old boys' club."

The latter might also be said of the FA, though we do hear that even that male-dominated body might consider hiring a woman as new chief executive to replace the departing Alex Horne.

We understand chairman Greg Dyke has made it clear that he would not be adverse to considering a female candidate.

Chelsea Ladies' and England striker Eniola Aluko, the first female pundit to appear on the BBC's Match of the Day, would help the Football Association become a less male-dominated organisation if a role could be found for her ©Getty Images



One who certainly has the qualifications for it is the current Sunderland chief executive Margaret Byrne, a 33-year-old lawyer from Belfast who is already on the FA Council and a member of the International Committee.

She has impressed with her grasp of the game at the club she joined as in-house lawyer in 2007, becoming CEO three years ago.

Heather Rabbatts, the only female FA Board member, and Baroness Karren Brady, the West Ham United vice-chair, also would be on any headhunters' list as female options, as would Debbie Jevans, Sebastian Coe's right-hand woman as sports director during London 2012 and now the most influential female in British sport as organiser of this year's rugby union World Cup.

The former junior Wimbledon tennis champion is currently a rare feminine presence in football at governing body level as an independent director of the Football League.

Once the rugby showpiece is done and dusted it would be good to see her invited to shake up the round ball game though, like ex-Millwall chair Rabbatts and the politically ambitious Tory peer Brady, I fear she may be considered far too feisty and strong-willed for football's chauvinistic freemasonry.

Another female who ticks all the right boxes for a place at football's top table is Chelsea Ladies' articulate 27-year-old Nigerian-born England striker Eniola Aluko, the first female pundit in the history of the BBC's Match of the Day, who has a first-class law degree and says her life motto is "have a healthy disregard for the impossible".

That attitude surely reflects what is needed to prod the game's inert hierarchy into positive action.

Meantime some good news is that Rabbatts, who with sports minister Helen Grant co-chaired a meeting between relevant football bodies last week, reports progress is being made to end the "closed system" which sees disturbingly few black coaches, managers and administrators in the game.

If it takes girl power to get things sorted in football, then bring it on, eh chaps?

Let's drink to that - out of the FA Cup of course.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.