England’s coach sacked after 1 game

MANCHESTER—Even by English soccer’s standards, the latest embarrassment is a new low. Sam Allardyce was forced out in disgrace after one game in charge of the national team.

Having taken 25 years to reach the pinnacle of English soccer management, Allardyce was toppled after only 67 days by his hubris and indiscretions involving undercover journalists posing as businessmen.

The English Football Association decided Tuesday, within 24 hours of a Daily Telegraph sting being published, that the 61-year-old Allardyce lacked the integrity to hold one of the most prestigious jobs in the game.

Allardyce had a 100 percent record — winning his only game against Slovakia earlier this month — but will go down as the England manager with the shortest tenure.

Even before taking charge of his first game, Allardyce was inadvertently preparing the ground for his downfall with his loose talk in a London hotel in August to the investigative reporters.

A covert video showed Allardyce appearing to offer advice to fictitious businessmen on how to sidestep an outlawed player transfer practice and also to negotiate a 400,000-pound ($519,000) public-speaking contract to top up an annual England salary of 3 million pounds ($4 million).

A further video showed Allardyce mocking predecessor Roy Hodgson, who was fired after England’s humiliating loss to tiny Iceland at the European Championship in June, questioning the FA’s financial strategy and talking dismissively about the organization’s president, Prince William.

The FA acted swiftly to publication of the story, holding emergency talks with Allardyce in London before announcing the termination of his two-year contract on Tuesday evening.

“In light of the media allegations that we’ve seen,” FA chief executive Martin Glenn said, “we’ve concluded — and Sam’s agreed — that his behavior has been inappropriate and frankly not what is expected of an England manager.”

And, as “guardians of the game,” Glenn insisted that the same rules and high standards of conduct had to apply to everyone in English soccer.

“That consistency, that trust that people have in us to behave in the appropriate manner, is core to what any football association is about,” Glenn said. “It’s a painful decision because we thought he was a great manager, but it’s the right decision if we are to protect the integrity of The FA.”