By Mike Collett
LONDON (Reuters) - Former 10,000 metres world record holder David Bedford knows all about competing at the highest level of elite sport, and also about life in the less than glamorous world of English non-league soccer.
As a director of north London part-timers Hendon FC, who play in the premier division of the Isthmian League, the seventh tier of the pyramid, he is not exactly rubbing his hands in gleeful expectation at the prospect of thousands of pounds landing on Hendon's doorstep any day soon.
In a perfect world, he could be.
In a perfect world some of the 5.14 billion pounds ($7.80 billion) secured by the Premier League as a result of their new TV rights deal with Sky and BT Sport would guarantee the future of hundreds of clubs like Hendon all over the country.
But the reality, Bedford told Reuters, is very different.
"I was pleased to hear the Premier League chairman Richard Scudamore say that some of this money is going to help fund the grassroots of the game," said Bedford, who was race director of the London Marathon for many years after his own glittering athletics career ended.
"This money gives the Premier League a great opportunity for a root and branch appraisal of how they can help clubs like ours and many more like us.
"If the money is invested in the grassroots clubs linked with developing, for example all-weather pitches for the local community as proposed by the FA chairman Greg Dyke, then that is all well and good.
"But one of the problems is that the Premier League has all this money but no responsibility. There is a disconnect between the Premier League and the FA," added the 65-year-old.
The Premier League, he said, should help the FA in its job of safeguarding the game.
"With this windfall the future of the game at the lowest levels could be guaranteed and the Premier League's legacy would be not so much that they were Swiss bankers but visionaries with the future of the game at their heart."
VAST SALARIES
Bedford's view is shared by many, distanced from today's footballers by the vast salaries earned by Premier League players like Manchester United's Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao who are both said to be on more than 300,000 pounds a week.
Compare that to the finances of 107-year-old Hendon, who won the old FA Amateur Cup three times and were European amateur champions in 1973 but now play in front of crowds that number around 200 on a good day.
"We need an income of around 150,000 pounds a year to survive," said Bedford. "But look at the state of the non-League game. Everywhere you look there are decaying facilities, many grounds still have old wooden stands.
"We do have sponsors in inverted commas, but most of those involved in keeping clubs like Hendon going do it out of the kindness of their hearts."
Bedford said Hendon took in some gate money, and occasional prize money from the FA Cup and the FA Trophy, but it was otherwise a struggle to survive.
"A fraction of the money coming into English football through the Premier League, used correctly, would guarantee the future of grassroots football for years," he said.
"But in reality I can see a time within the next 30 years when 20 per cent of today's clubs from the Conference level (fifth tier) downwards could disappear."
Scudamore, who earns a reported salary of almost 2.0 million pounds a year, said on Wednesday that while the Premier League is a "success story" it was not a charity and its first duty was to ensure it remained the most attractive league in the world.
Bedford understands that narrative as he helped make the London Marathon the most attractive in the world with the best names competing.
But as he also knows that top talent, in whatever sport, needs its grassroots to thrive.