Mills and Gradi join commission

10 October 2013 01:01

Former England defender Danny Mills and Crewe manager Dario Gradi have been named on the Football Association commission charged with improving the national team.

They join FA chairman Greg Dyke, former England manager Glenn Hoddle, Football League chairman Greg Clarke, FA vice-chairman Roger Burden, plus LMA chairman Howard Wilkinson and new PFA chairman Ritchie Humphreys.

That brings the total to eight representatives and Dyke said there would be "no more than 10" in total.

Dyke, who said that it was "a shame" the Premier League had turned down his offer to have a its chairman Anthony Fry on the commission, revealed that Mills had impressed by sending him a paper on his ideas.

Dyke said: "He wrote a very interesting paper and gave it to us - very interesting ideas.

"We are still talking to one or two other people who have not made up their minds."

The commission will report back by the end of March.

Dyke added: "It will take a few months, we are employing some people to work full time on it, to do some research. We have to look at all sorts of other countries, look at the discussion we had this morning, look at Spain, Germany and the rest, look at what they did, what could we do and the rest of it."

Asked about the Premier League's decision, he said: "I spoke to the chairman, who is an old mate of mine, and Richard [Scudamore] and we discussed it before and they said 'look, we will give all the support we can but we don't want to sit on it'.

"I think it's a shame but I understand."

Source: PA