‘Team looks weak for missing trip to Somme memorial’

THE Football Association was embroiled in a row last night after excluding the England squad from an official visit to the Somme war memorial for fear it would be too “draining” ahead of Euro 2016.

The players were “advised” not to visit the battlefield because the threehour round trip could have been “detrimental” ahead of Saturday’s opening match against Russia. The decision by the science and medical teams is understood to have disappointed some in Roy Hodgson’s 23-man squad who had hoped to pay their respects.

Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, said the decision made the team “seem weak”. “If it is supposedly ‘draining’ for them, they might like to think about how draining it was for those who fought at The Somme,” he said.

Martin Glenn, FA chief executive, who laid a wreath at the Thiepval Memorial, said: “Football takes priority.”