FA shield Roy’s men from job cull

THE FA are doing all they can to ensure their mass redundancy programme doesn’t affect the England team.

Roy Hodgson’s backroom staff have already been ring-fenced from the potential 150 job losses elsewhere in the organisation.

And although the FA communications department is one of the areas being hit, the media personnel who work most closely with Hodgson have already been told there will be no changes to their positions until after Euro 2016.

This means head of media relations Mark Whittle will continue as the main England football spokesman and the equally highly respected Joanne Budd, who has been part of the England set-up since Terry Venables’s reign, will lead the planning of the England media base around Paris for Euro 2016. Like all Budd’s England press centres at major championships, it will be in a different league from the RFU’s excuse of a media tent at Pennyhill Park.

Meanwhile, those FA employees facing the axe will not be impressed that the England party in San Marino have continued with the extra expense of being based in two hotels on away trips. After the World Cup debacle it was thought the players would focus better if they stayed, along with Roy Hodgson and his backroom staff, in different accommodation from the sponsors, FA blazers and other hangers-on.

FA chief executive Martin Glenn is one of those travelling, so he can judge for himself whether the FA can justify such extravagance. ONE imagines that if Wayne Rooney becomes England’s record goalscorer against San Marino today he will be prepared to put more than just one foot inside the interview mixed zone — to satisfy media regulations — as he did after Manchester United’s defeat at Swansea. MICHAELA TABB (right), the first woman to referee a snooker World Championship final, has had an acrimonious falling out with World Snooker. It is believed to be about poor pay and unpaid bonuses and has resulted in a claim for constructive dismissal being heard at an employment tribunal in Bristol. WATFORD’S profile will be enhanced next week when England use their training ground — and Tottenham’s — before the match against Switzerland. Watford are based next door to Arsenal’s training HQ at London Colney, which is unavailable because of building work. But England have been made rather more welcome at Watford’s facilities and manager Roy Hodgson has had a good relationship with the Pozzo family, who own the club, since he managed their Italian side Udinese.