A RECENT thought on sport provoked a reaction from the Welsh FA towers who launched a staunch defence of its current plans to follow the well trod path of culling their top league.
I am not against streamlining in principle and I would be the first to admit that Welsh football needs modernisation but unfortunately the real reforms are needed within the Welsh FA itself.
I hear what you are saying. What kind of turkey is going to vote for Christmas? The Welsh FA is fully aware of its own unpopularity and I am sure would not risk openly admitting their shortcomings at the risk of opening the floodgates for hundreds more reasons for complaint.
Let's get one thing straight. I think the job done by John Deakin and continued by Andrew Howard has been superb. They are merely singing the prayer sheet passed down by the Welsh FA and to be fair both have done a sterling job in improving standards.
However, while both have openly raved over the possible positives of a 12-club top league, summer football, a mid-winter break, salary capping and virtually anything else tried in Ireland or Scotland, I feel both may have missed the real problem within Welsh football.
That fellow friends of Welsh football is the Welsh FA itself. The association has ordered reforms while remaining impervious to change itself.
We still have a bloated council membership, we still have a drastic shortfall in funding and we still have an association without any kind of representation outside one street in Cardiff city centre. The area associations seem to have no relationship with the national association rather than token membership and there is no direction.
It seems all the Welsh FA can do is keep telling clubs the culling of Welsh football is for the best and must be supported even though they openly admit they have absolutely no idea how a 12-club league will operate apart from it will be cheaper and all polls have underlined that supporters will walk away rather than support a 12-club league.
I had hoped that with the retirement of the massively unpopular secretary general David Collins after 20 years would finally bring about some much needed change but I now accept it will be a different face with the same attitudes.
Almost two months ago I contacted the Welsh FA office with a few questions for Jonathan Ford - the new Welsh FA secretary and the man employed to rebuild the bridges burnt by his predessesor over the preceding 20 years.
However six weeks on I have received no reply and quite frankly I have surrendered all hope of living in a country where its football association pays any more than lip service to the game its supposed to be developing.
A lack of transparency to the press I can handle but a complete disregard for its role as wardens for Welsh football I cannot.
And what else can you call it but disregard. We are seven months away from the kick-off of the so called Super 12 but yet there is no final plan on the constitutions or even criteria. Funding has been delayed and delayed and while some clubs were awarded fortunes in grant aid others were merely ignored and effectively left to the vultures.
Furthermore there will be less academies in operation next season than any other time since the inception of the Welsh Premier due to the continued lack of investment from the Welsh FA (the same organisation which passes edicts to clubs to provide youth provision!)
In short it seems to me that the Welsh FA has no idea what its doing or what direction it is taking and I fear for the future of the game in Wales when we are being led in the unknown by administrative equivalent of a blind baby duck with one leg.