Off-field Life
During the 1970 FIFA World Cup Dougan was a panellist for ITV. He served as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association from 1970 to 1978 and was instrumental in the establishment of players' rights and free agency. Dougan believed passionately that players should control their own destiny and used his position as Chairman of the PFA to further players' rights. Many of football's modern elite have benefitted from Dougan's passionate perseverance of this issue and this may well be reflected upon as his lasting, albeit controversial, legacy.
He wrote several books, including the autobiographical The Sash He Never Wore (Allison & Busby, 1972) and the novel The Footballer (Allison & Busby, 1974).
In August 1982 he became chief executive and later chairman of Wolves, as part of a consortium that saved the club from liquidation, a position he retained until 1985. He stood as a parliamentary candidate for East Belfast in the 1997 election, but got only 1.4% of the vote. In December 2005, Dougan helped carry the coffin of George Best with a number of other Northern Ireland teammates. On 14 June 2006, he appeared on the BBC political show Question Time, as a representative of United Kingdom Independence Party.
Read more about this topic: Derek Dougan
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)