The FA face crunch talks with Football League in bid over Wembley sale

A crucial meeting is scheduled for Friday to try to resolve the £150million impasse threatening to derail the Wembley sale.

The Football League are on course to receive that amount of money if the FA sell the national stadium to Fulham owner Shahid Khan for £600m because the proceeds must be shared between the professional and amateur games.

And rather than just hand over their windfall to the FA to invest in grassroots football through the Football Foundation charity, as the Premier League are prepared to do, the FL want to invest it in good causes themselves through their 72 clubs.

The FL believe their clubs, who would receive more than £2m each, do much more for community football than the county FAs.

The issue is top of the agenda at the summit involving representatives from the three major football bodies. And although there is some hope of a resolution, it will need the FL to move from their entrenched position.

Sir Dave Richards, who divided opinion when he was the most powerful figure in English football as chairman of the Premier League, the FA international committee and Club England, attended his first England match for five years at Leicester.

Richards, who wanted to keep out of the way as he no longer pulls the strings, put his England return purely down to him getting a lift from his Sheffield home.

Alastair Cook's ‘no fuss’ final Test that brought him 13 standing ovations at The Oval, concluded with yet more presentations after the game from the players.

They gave him a book of tributes plus 33 inscribed bottles of champagne to mark his number of Test centuries. The day before the media gave him 33 personalised bottles of beer.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Anderson, who has 564 Test victims, is now 1-3 with bookmakers to end his Test career with 600 wickets. But that could depend on how Anderson copes on England tours without his close friend Cook this winter. Anderson may well choose to call it a day after the Ashes next summer, which would give him a maximum of 12 more Tests to reach the landmark.

Cook has raised the bar to a rarefied height for plotting his international exit strategy so well. And the FA missed a trick with Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, who retired from international football a fortnight ago just before Gareth Southgate named his first post-World Cup squad.

The low-key friendly against Switzerland at the King Power Stadium would have attracted a bigger crowd if it had been promoted as Vardy’s last game for England, which would not have required much shift in the player’s international retirement plans. Instead Vardy was just a spectator at his home ground.

Jordan’s blast at PFA

Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan was outspoken on talkSPORT on Wednesday, criticising the Professional Footballers’ Association following Sports Agenda revelations that the players’ union are set to receive £27m a year from the Premier League for another TV rights cycle next season.

Jordan fully supported this column’s belief that the PFA should be self-supporting, saying: ‘There is no justification’ for the PL to bankroll them.

Jordan added: ‘The PFA should be funded by the players but 90 per cent wouldn’t pay anything. I have yet to meet a player who attaches any significant value to what the PFA do. They are outdated, outmoded and unnecessary.’

Eyebrows have been raised in the sports industry over agents IMG selling the UK rights to the US PGA golf championship to streaming service provider Eleven Sports.

This is because IMG have had a small ownership stake in Eleven since it formed. An IMG spokesman said: ‘The US PGA were happy with the deal and we always try to get the best deal out there for all our clients.’