Confront football association over crude sides (4)
I believe the answer is:
face
'confront' is the definition.
(I know that confront can be written as face)
'football association over crude sides' is the wordplay.
'football association' becomes 'FA' (abbreviation).
'over' says to put letters next to each other (in a down clue, some letters go over others).
'sides' means to remove the middle letters (only the letters on the sides are used).
'crude' with its centre taken out is 'ce'.
'fa'+'ce'='FACE'
(Other definitions for face that I've seen before include "Front -- confront" , "Outward appearance" , "'Cheeks, mouth, eyes etc (4)'" , "Countenance, visage" , "celebrity" .)