English football is facing the prospect of a significant structural overhaul after a Government-backed report into the state of the nation's game called for wide-reaching reforms of the Football Association.

Lord Burns, the life peer appointed to carry out an assessment of the game, sent an open letter to the FA today outlining some of the proposed reforms that will feature in a full report to be published next month.

Among the suggestions made in the 15-page interim report is a recommendation that the FA council be turned into a football "parliament" to which a board of directors would be accountable. After ascribing the current set-up with "inadequacies of organisational structures that were not designed with the modern demands of a sports governing body", Lord Burns sketched out his vision of a new FA.

This includes making the FA board solely responsible for running English football's governing body but accountable to the council.

The letter said: "In broad terms, my initial thinking has revolved around the creation of a new FA board of directors, properly constituted, to take full strategic responsibility for all FA matters and to lead a newly structured FA with simpler and cleaner organisational divisions; a more focused council which would be seen as the 'parliament' of football and to which the board would be accountable."

After reviewing more than 200 submissions from all areas of the game, he identifies dramatic changes in the game over the past 50 years with "some of the most significant developments occurring in just the last decade or so".

These include a shift in the way the game is played at grass-roots level, from "traditional adult male 11-a-side football" towards small-sided forms of the game, run by independent and commercial organisations. More importantly for the professional game, Lord Burns identifies "a major shift towards a more international focus, with European competitions, overseas players and the international marketing of television rights".

The latter has led, he asserts, to increasing tension between the amateur and professional games which prompted the creation of the FA board, described by Lord Burns as a "hybrid" intended to run both sides of the game but, in effect, helping neither.

As well as reconstituting the FA board to manage the day-to-day and long-term running of the organisation, Lord Burns believes there are a number of groups not properly represented by the council.

These include players, match officials, managers and supporters as well as ethnic groups, women and disabled groups.

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football