Former FA Board member Dame Heather Rabbatts has been rejected for the PFA role of picking Gordon Taylor’s successor as chief executive amid hotly contested claims she was considered ‘too urban’.
Sportsmail has learned that the former Millwall director, who spent five years as the only woman and only person of colour on the FA Board before standing down three years ago, applied to become one of the four new independent non-executive directors of the PFA who will appoint Taylor’s replacement after 38 years, but did not make a 40-strong shortlist of candidates.
Rabbatts’ application is understood to have been rejected by headhunting company Odgers Berndtson, who are handling the initial process before handing over to the PFA’s three-person panel comprising former England defender Gary Neville, Oxford defender John Mousinho and lawyer Edward Canty, who will begin to conduct interviews next week with a view to making the appointments before the end of November.