Sports governing bodies are rarely seen as beacons of good management practice. England's Football Association, which organises the world famous FA Cup competition that reaches its climax this weekend, is no exception. In recent years, it has often seemed ponderous, divided and weak-willed as a succession of chief executives has come and gone. Brian Barwick, the present incumbent, is the third in less than three years.

So it is encouraging that one of the country's pre-eminent organisational thinkers has been brought in to conduct a structural review of a body that is scarcely out of the public eye. He is Lord Burns, chairman of Abbey National and non-executive director of Pearson, owner of the FT, who started out as an economics lecturer before rising to become the top civil servant at the Treasury.