The FA welcomes Mark Palios

The fifty-year-old former professional footballer turned chartered accountant will spend his first day meeting his new management team and staff at The FA's Soho Square headquarters in London before embarking on the challenge of taking control of one of the UK's highest profile organisations.

More than 400 league and cup matches for Tranmere Rovers and Crewe Alexandra will have given the Liverpool-born midfielder an excellent insight into the game at a professional level, while more recently Mark has been much closer to football's grass roots playing for Pioneer FC in the Chesham Sunday League close to his home in Buckinghamshire.

After retiring from full-time professional football in 1985, Mark accelerated his fledgling accountancy career and became a partner in Arthur Young in 1986. Three years later he joined PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a Partner. Since 1997, as the UK Leader for Business Regeneration, Mark has led the development of PwC's approach to business turnaround.

Mark's links with professional football were re-established during his time with PwC when he worked on a range of projects within the game and provided advice and support to a number of clubs.

Speaking exclusively to TheFA.com on his first morning at Soho Square, Mark spoke about his excitement at leading The FA and about the challenges ahead:

"The FA is one of football's oldest and most famous organisations. I see it as a great privilege to be leading The FA at a very exciting and demanding time for football. The game is still by far the most popular sport on earth and the numbers of people playing, watching and becoming involved in football in all its forms continues to grow. This is a fantastic foundation on which to build for the future.

"As a former player and as a fan of the game, I am in no doubt that The FA must at all times put football first. I am well aware that, with responsibility for building a fantastic new national stadium, our organisation and our resources have been stretched in recent years. But we must always remember why we are here and consider our responsibilities to the entire game at all levels. It's about getting the balance right.

Reflecting on recent more difficult times for The FA, the new Chief Executive spoke frankly of his determination to make quick progress:

"I am in no doubt that there will be significant challenges ahead. We must, for example, ensure that relationships across the game improve. There are now a large number of talented and experienced people working at all levels and across many bodies and organisations in the game and we must harness this collective talent for the good of football.

"Our much written about financial position has been stabilised in recent weeks and we must now review and agree The FA's priorities and determine the necessary funding strategy to support them. It's critical that, while the game is so popular, we do all we can to encourage and support the young and impressive crop of players we now have in our men's and women's national teams, while also ensuring that we protect and nurture the grass roots of the game for future generations."

With such a big job ahead of him, TheFA.com asked Mark Palios about his immediate priorities:

"Football is a great game but it is a relatively diverse and complex business. There are many people in the game with considerably more experience of running football than me, including some very experienced and committed people here at The FA.

"I want to spend my first few weeks in the job getting to know my management team and staff, but also taking time to meet with colleagues in the various football bodies, including the Premier League, Football League and Football Conference. I also intend to talk to the PFA and LMA and of course our match officials body. I have already met some of our broadcast and commercial partners at recent matches and I look forward to building on these important relationships in the weeks and months to come.

"This country is also extremely fortunate to have a strong support network for grassroots football. Our colleagues up and down the country in the County Football Associations play a vital role in supporting and sustaining our local leagues and ultimately providing that all-important bridge to the professional game. With this in mind, I am very much looking forward to meeting their representatives, The FA Council Members, to ensure that my early picture of the game is both balanced and complete."

TheFA.com can also reveal that the last few weeks have been particularly hectic for Mark as, while the rest of football looked to take its summer break, Mark has been doing two jobs - completing his final tasks at PwC while quietly putting in some extra hours in the early evening at Soho Square to ensure that he hits the ground running today.

In between times, Mark has been preparing his partner and five daughters for what will be a very different day job and reassuring them that, despite two jobs merging into one of late, he will take a short break this summer. In fact, as every parent knows, finding time in the school holidays to do the day job and fitting in the all important family holiday is almost demanding as finding a spare week in football's own fixture calendar!

"I will be taking a holiday later this month to spend some time with my family and to reflect on my first few weeks in this job and the various discussions I will have had with different people in the game", Mark revealed, "I'll then be preparing for my first media briefing in this role in the week leading up to The FA Community Shield between Arsenal and Manchester United, closely followed by England's friendly match with Croatia at Ipswich ten days later - and then the season really gets under way!"

After that break of eighteen years, it seems that Mark Palios is wasting no time in organising his new football diary.

Mark Palios - Fact File