Labour MP Andy Burnham has welcomed greater parliamentary scrutiny for English football, amid worries a "corrosive money culture" is ruining the fabric of the game.
Burnham served as secretary of state for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2008-09 and is now a candidate to become Greater Manchester's first elected mayor.
Last week Football Association chairman Greg Clarke was called in front of the DCMS select committee investigating "major failings in the current system of football governance", and Burnham believes it is essential to arrest the national side's slump and re-engage with communities.
"I think the select committee are right to hold the FA to account for what it is doing to make sure that the national game has integrity," Burnham told Press Association Sport.
"Greg has handled these difficult issues as well as could have been expected but I think what parliament is worried about is that the national game has an unhealthy, corrosive money culture that runs through all levels of it and actually the game, in some ways, is losing sight of what we're all about.
"I think everybody watched the European Championship and you couldn't help but feel that something is seriously lacking from English football, a hunger to succeed at that level. I think people do link it to money and the unhealthy effect of money at the top of the game.
"I feel money takes a tight hold over football with every year that passes.
"We need to both clean up the game in terms of the integrity side of the game and have no sense that any rules are being bypassed or underwritten when it comes to issues like third-party ownership but more importantly what are we doing to ensure the health of English football at every level and particularly the national team.
"I've been heavily involved in some of the moves towards more supporter-owned football clubs and I credit the game for the way it's embraced that concept. But I don't think I can say to you that football is moving closer to its roots and its communities because it's not, it's going in the other direction.
"If we don't get a grip on this stuff, eventually the game might drift away altogether."
Burnham, a staunch Everton fan who once said he would never miss a home game even if he became Prime Minister, is hardly a newcomer to such issues.
Eight years ago, during his time in Gordon Brown's government, he set the FA a list of seven questions to answer and was dismayed by the response.
"My questions to the game provoked a bit of an argument and in the end the FA lost, if you like," he recalled.
"They weren't answered, is the truth. The FA sent me back a reply that effectively said 'we refer you to the reply given by the Premier League'.
"That revealed the dysfunctionally of the governance of English football and I don't think it's been resolved."
Source: PA
