Horne Named As New FA General Secretary
The Football Association has moved to add some much-needed stability to its management team by appointing Alex Horne as the permanent successor to former chief executive Ian Watmore in the newly titled role of general secretary.
Horne has been acting as temporary chief executive since Watmore unexpectedly resigned after less than a year in the post due to disagreements with senior figures on the FA board.
The governing body has been further hit this month after independent chairman Lord Triesman stood down as FA chairman as well as the England 2018 World Cup bid after what he called his ‘entrapment’ by the Mail on Sunday.
Until a new independent chairman can be appointed to succeed Triesman, the FA has made Roger Burden acting chairman.
The new chairman will have to have a ‘football understanding and who can oversee the broad business of the FA’, said the FA board in a statement.
Horne is a former managing director of Wembley Stadium and for the last two years has been the FA’s chief operating officer.
He qualified as a chartered accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers specialising in business improvement and corporate turnarounds, and joined the FA in 2003 as finance director.
The FA has changed the title of the job to general secretary to bring England’s governing body into line with Fifa and Uefa and other national associations.
