Hodgson returns to football fray in Qatar

FORMER England manager Roy Hodgson is making a return to football in the wake of that humiliating defeat by Iceland at Euro 2016 by accepting work as a TV pundit in Doha, despite the international crisis enveloping Qatar.

Hodgson, who presided over England’s failures at the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016, will be in the BeIn Sport studio throughout their coverage of the Confederations Cup.

A number of Middle Eastern countries — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt — have cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, who they accuse of funding terrorism.

The longer the dispute continues, the more it will interfere with preparations for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Hodgson has taken a long time to recover from his England meltdown, surfacing only in the last 12 months for media interviews.

In Doha, he will work alongside former Sky Sports duo Richard Keys and Andy Gray, who have spent five successful years with BeIn Sport. Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill will also be working in Qatar.

MCC need all the help they can muster from the media to publicise their side of the battle with property developer Rifkind Associates over the renovation of Lord’s. But they still sent members an email from bull-in-a-china-shop chairman Gerald Corbett (right) complaining about ‘misleading reports and inaccuracies’ in the national press. However, the stand-out inaccuracy was MCC’s claim that their review is neutral when it is so heavily weighted against RA.

THERE is every expectation among agents that this summer’s transfer window will see total spending of more than £1.5billion — smashing the previous record of £1.194bn set last year. Everton, outside the Big Six, have already splashed out more than £70m. Manchester United and City’s expenditure will be around £150m and Arsenal’s careful manager Arsene Wenger wants to spend that much, too. Even a low-profile player such as central defender Harry Maguire has commanded wages of £80,000 a week in his £17m move from Hull City to Leicester.

AN FA delegation is attending the Confederation Cup in Russia, looking at potential 2018 World Cup bases for England. St Petersburg and Moscow are understood to be two of the options and the players would no doubt prefer to stay at the plush inner-city hotels in the FIFA catalogue rather than being based in the Russian wilderness.