The pursuit of help from the Professional Footballers Association still seems a bleak prospect for families of players who gave joy to so many of us and are living with dementia now.

The family of Chris Nicholl had found the process desperately tough before he died last month. The daughter of Tony Parkes has given up asking the union for help. 

The daughter of Mike Lyons was informed that there would be no help if she brought him home from Australia to live near her, on his beloved Merseyside.

The former Manchester United player David May last week described a member of one of his WhatsApp groups having to sell their home to fund dementia care for a former player. Another is being moved to a different care home, because his family can’t afford the costs.

None of these families want a fuss. They’re too busy getting on with the unremitting daily struggle that a dementia diagnosis brings. 

The family of former Aston Villa star Chris Nicholl (pictured) tried to get help for him from the Professional Footballers Association before he died last year following a battle with dementia

The family of former Aston Villa star Chris Nicholl (pictured) tried to get help for him from the Professional Footballers Association before he died last year following a battle with dementia

The family of former Aston Villa star Chris Nicholl (pictured) tried to get help for him from the Professional Footballers Association before he died last year following a battle with dementia

The daughter of Tony Parkes (above) has given up hope of asking the PFA for help and support

The daughter of Tony Parkes (above) has given up hope of asking the PFA for help and support

The daughter of Tony Parkes (above) has given up hope of asking the PFA for help and support

The daughter of former Everton captain Mick Lyons (pictured together in Perth) has been told the 72-year-old will receive no help if he is brought back to the UK from Australia

The daughter of former Everton captain Mick Lyons (pictured together in Perth) has been told the 72-year-old will receive no help if he is brought back to the UK from Australia

The daughter of former Everton captain Mick Lyons (pictured together in Perth) has been told the 72-year-old will receive no help if he is brought back to the UK from Australia

I’ll never forget Rob Stiles, son of Nobby, detailing to me the devastating little indignities of his mother’s search for help from the PFA – then calling me a day later to ask that certain facts be excluded, to avoid causing offence. What incredible dignity.

In these circumstances, the latest role taken up by Maheta Molango, the PFA chief executive, is unfortunate to say the least. 

Molango is to join the board of Sampdoria, though you would need to follow the Italian club’s own media or obscure corners of the Italian sports press to know it. This news, announced by the club last week, comes four months after the PFA said it was giving Molango a £150,000 backdated pay-rise, taking his salary to £650,000, because of the cost-of-living crisis.

It’s been impossible to extract a sense from Italy of how much Molango will earn in the new role and answers to that question are loaded with talk about second-tier Sampdoria not being wealthy and Molango joining because he was a boyhood fan. The PFA say that it is a ‘light touch’ non-executive role from which he will earn ‘basic costs and expenses.’

But the salary is not the point. This highly renumerated union boss, whose post at the PFA has also seen him join the board of the global players’ union FIFPRO, becomes part of the executive function at a club whose players he supposedly represents. 

Molango’s PFA predecessor Gordon Taylor certainly had his faults, including a grotesque £2million annual salary, but it’s fair to say that he would have been annihilated for taking a boardroom role at any club.

PFA chief executive Maheta Molango (pictured) will be getting a £150,000 backdated pay-rise

PFA chief executive Maheta Molango (pictured) will be getting a £150,000 backdated pay-rise

PFA chief executive Maheta Molango (pictured) will be getting a £150,000 backdated pay-rise

Former PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor (pictured in 2021) had a grotesque £2m-a-year salary, but he would have been slammed if he'd have taken a role in the boardroom of a club

Former PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor (pictured in 2021) had a grotesque £2m-a-year salary, but he would have been slammed if he'd have taken a role in the boardroom of a club

Former PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor (pictured in 2021) had a grotesque £2m-a-year salary, but he would have been slammed if he’d have taken a role in the boardroom of a club

The PFA say Molango ‘consulted the PFA’s operational board before taking the role‘ and that if any future conflict of interest presented itself, he would recuse him himself. 

But it’s not a good look on the back of that salary hike and the union’s current need to demonstrate that their every working minute is being committed to making up for how dementia among its members was scandalously ignored for so long.

The PFA is six months into the administration of a new £1million fund for former footballers living with illness, to which it has committed £250,000, and at an operational level, that cash is actually making a difference. 

The involvement of Dawn Astle, the extraordinary campaigner who brought the link between football and dementia out into the light, was shrewd. The new pot of money means families are being helped in a way they were not before. Occupational therapists sent out to assess the needs of former players will find in some cases that they need more support than they are actually requesting.

But this is no mere operational job. Scores of families describe to me their confusion about what they might be entitled to, disappointment that, in their own minds, there might be no help for them and anger over the detailed picture they are being asked to provide of their finances. 

This is a huge communication challenge, requiring immense leadership. We’ve heard little from Molango on any of it, beyond an interview a few years back in which he said he’d learned from other on this subject and had committed to donating his brain for research.

Molango should speak to the families of people like former Everton star Lyons (pictured)

Molango should speak to the families of people like former Everton star Lyons (pictured)

Molango should speak to the families of people like former Everton star Lyons (pictured)

Parkes (right), a much-loved assistant to Graeme Souness at Blackburn has endured a difficult few years since his dementia diagnosis

Parkes (right), a much-loved assistant to Graeme Souness at Blackburn has endured a difficult few years since his dementia diagnosis

Parkes (right), a much-loved assistant to Graeme Souness at Blackburn has endured a difficult few years since his dementia diagnosis

Perhaps he might speak to some of these families. People like Francesca Lyons, daughter of Mike, who flew to Australia last year to bring the legendary former Everton player back home to Merseyside for ‘one last time,’ as she puts it.

The trip, paid for by the late Bill Kenwright, took Mike back to the old familiar places, including his beloved Goodison Park. ‘It changed him,’ she tells me. ‘He was more himself again.’ And that made her regret, all the more, that there was no way football could help her bring him back for good. ‘It made me think, “What if?” she says.

The difficult last years for Parkes, much-loved former Blackburn Rovers assistant manager, is told in a beautiful biography by journalist Suzanne Geldard. Parkes’ daughter, Natalie, describes ‘just going around in circles with the PFA’, an organisation she actually found more supportive when Taylor, a former Rovers player, was at the helm. ‘You used to be able to make him laugh but now you can’t,’ Natalie said of her father. ‘The illness, however it manifests, has done that.’

The testimonies are heartbreaking. They reveal to Molango and anyone who cares to listen that this challenge is a full-time job, with monumental work to do for these legends of our sport, while we still have them with us.

Boyce brings joy to Cardiff

A day from the heavens in Cardiff on Sunday, watching Wales play valiantly for an hour before France prevailed in the Six Nations

There were men dressed as frogs and Eiffel Towers bounding around St Mary’s Street, near the castle. There was my momentary irritation with an advert declaring, ‘When delivery matters, it has to be Royal Mail’, flashing around the stadium. An £11 investment to send my lovely mum’s Mother’s Day card special delivery and it still hadn’t arrived on time.

Max Boyce (pictured) was in his element as he entertained the crowd ahead of last weekend's entertaining Six Nations clash between Wales and France at Principality Stadium

Max Boyce (pictured) was in his element as he entertained the crowd ahead of last weekend's entertaining Six Nations clash between Wales and France at Principality Stadium

Max Boyce (pictured) was in his element as he entertained the crowd ahead of last weekend’s entertaining Six Nations clash between Wales and France at Principality Stadium

And then there was Max Boyce, a legend of these occasions, taking the rise out of the decision to remove ‘Delilah’ from the stadium canon for politically correct reasons, and making a little sunshine out the moral panic about two opponents playing in green and red. Wales v Ireland, red playing green, being a problem for the colour-blind. 

No offence was intended. No offence was taken. Proof that when you deliver with wit, charm and that smile he has, you can broach almost any topic without fear of cancellation.

FA rolls out ‘applause only’ rule 

I hope Christine Benneworth did a better job than me of adhering to the FA recent ‘applause only’ rules. 

Charles, 6, plays every weekend and recently picked up a player of the match award

Charles, 6, plays every weekend and recently picked up a player of the match award

Charles, 6, plays every weekend and recently picked up a player of the match award

Her picture, here, of six-year-old Charles, her great grandson, whom she loyally supports, is another of the many you have sent in. 

‘He plays every weekend at the age of six. Man of the match last Sunday,’ Christine proudly reports.

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