PFA Chief Gordon Taylor Pressured to Step Down Amid Demands for Modernisation

The chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, Gordon Taylor, is under pressure to step down following calls for the organisation to be modernised by more than 300 ex-professionals.

Taylor has supposedly gone unchallenged in his leadership since he was first appointed in 1981, something which would make him in breach of both trade union and PFA rules, but the union's chairman Ben Purkiss is leading the stand against its current regime.

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The Daily Mail explain that the PFA held a crisis meeting at their headquarters in Manchester on Tuesday, where Taylor refused to answer questions after being approached by the BBC.

They add that Purkiss wants 'an independent governance review' due to concerns over how the union distributes their funds.

ITV continue down this path by adding that chief executive Taylor received £2.2m in salary and bonuses last year, meaning that he pocketed more than double what the average player at Huddersfield Town earned during the 2017/18 campaign, based on figures from Statista.

In comparison, ITV adds, the PFA have given just £565,261 of their £25m annual fund into the footballers' benevolent grants and, despite evidence linking heading the ball with brain disease, £125,000 into dementia research.

"Gordon has been nothing but supportive of me when many other people left me on my own," former PFA chairman Clarke Carlisle said via the Daily Mail's report, joining the list of former pros to call for Taylor to step aside.

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"He has done a phenomenal job across four decades. He is in a perfect position to pass the union into new hands and have new eyes look at it."