Neville defends celebs revealing squad

ENGLaND women’s manager Phil Neville has said that the Fa’s decision to announce each of his World cup squad’s 23 names individually on Twitter ensured that they reached a potential audience of 170 million people. Neville admitted that the Fa’s social media route — every player ‘announced’ on the Twitter feeds of Fa ambassadors ranging from the Duke of cambridge and David Beckham to Emma Watson and James corden — would not be one Gareth Southgate’s men’s team chose. ‘our senior men are superstars. They’re on everything,’ said Neville, who has been forced to accept that Lyon midfielder izzy christiansen will not win her battle to be fit for France. ‘My players are not yet at that level so we had to actually flip it round a little bit and i think what we’ve done today is we’ve tapped into some of the most famous people in the world.’ The successful players and 13 back-up options were emailed at 8am on Monday, a strategy taken after consultation with Neville (below), who was devastated by the way he was left out of England’s 1998 Word cup squad by Glenn Hoddle. ‘after France ’98 i’ve got to say it affected me for six months,’ Neville said. ‘i thought everything about the process was wrong. But i now think i was embarrassed by my reaction after that. There’s actually no easy way.’ Neville and his players believe they can win in France — where they face Scotland, argentina and Japan in the group games — delivering the women’s game a huge boost at a time when it is commanding good sponsorship deals at last. The manager accepts that he must allow optimum access to players, to help grow the women’s game — even though he instinctively disagreed with that. He said: ‘i need to keep exposing my players to the things we ask them to do in terms of the social media stuff, the coaching in schools, the media stuff. ‘i can say from day one that i don’t want my players doing anything — but that’s not going to help growth. ‘i’ve had to adapt my management to them. it is important that they’re visible. it is important that we engage in a lot of things that maybe sometimes i don’t agree with.’