Foreigner may not be a ‘good option’ for FA

london — The Football Association may be reluctant to hire a foreigner as Sam Allardyce’s replacement as full-time England manager based on previous painful experiences, FA chief executive Martin Glenn told the BBC on Wednesday.

Glenn, who admitted he had been personally disappointed by Allardyce’s behaviour in which he advised journalists posing as Far Eastern businessmen about circumventing the ban on thirdparty ownership of players, added the national set-up had not been left in a great state when the foreign managers left.

Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson and Italy’s Fabio Capello are the two foreigners the FA have turned to with varying degrees of success this century.

Eriksson — along with Roy Hodgson the only manager to have gone to three major finals with England in the past 20 years — guided England to three successive quarter-finals, losing to Portugal on penalties in two of them. Capello’s reign was far less harmonious and included a woeful 2010 World Cup finals campaign culminating in a 4-1 thrashing by Germany.

“In the past we’ve gone for foreign managers who’d be attracted as they might help us win a tournament,” said Glenn, who was head-hunted last year to take up the role after a successful career in the food industry.

“They haven’t maybe left the international set up in a better place.

“We want somebody there for the long term.”

Glenn said one of the biggest conundrums the next manager faced and one that his predecessors had singularly failed to resolve is ridding the players of their demons with regard to donning the England shirt.

“We have been very successful at winning tournaments in the development teams,” said Glenn.

“The under-21s, the under19s, when we put our boys up against the best in the world we are winning. —