After a disastrous Euro 2016 campaign, England fired its manager Roy Hodgson and turned to Sam Allardyce. After one game and less than 70 days, he was gone, rocked by a scandal that leaves his reputation all but unrepairable.
First things first: Who is Sam Allardyce?
Something of a journeyman manager.
The 61 year-old transformed Bolton Wanders from a Division One team to a respectable Premier League outfit. Then after a disappointing spell at Newcastle, avoided relegation with Blackburn Rovers, lifted West Ham out of the Championship, and then pulled-off a dramatic turnaround at Sunderland last season. That was enough, after Hodgson’s dismissal, to land him the England job.
(AFP)
What happened next?
Not much, really. A press conference and a very shaky 1-0 win over Slovakia.
How did this scandal come about?
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph sent a team of undercover reporters posing as businessmen to meet with Allardyce and his agent. (You can read the investigation here)
Undercover reporters?
Yea, it happens more in England.
OK, what next?
Over the course of two meetings Allardyce compromised himself in a number of different ways. He made fun of his predecessor’s speech impediment, dogged the Football Association’s decision to rebuild Wembley, and most damning of all, offered advice on how to circumvent the FA’s “ridiculous” rules on transfers.
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What rules?
In 2008, the FA outlawed third-party ownership of players, meaning that only teams can own the rights to players. That may sound weird but it’s actually quite common of certain areas of the globe, like South America.
In many of those countries an agent will recognize the talent of a young soccer player and purchase his economic rights. He’ll pay him a salary, basically, and then keep the profits if and when they sell that player on to a professional team. In some areas it’s seen as a way of helping lift players out of poverty, though England wants no part of it.
Anyway: Allardyce, in the meetings, said that these rules were “ridiculous,” that circumventing them is “not a problem,” and named agents that have been “doing it for years.”
Sam Allardyce devastated, I’m told. Absolutely heartbroken. Realised it was his mistake and accepted he had to go.
Now what?
Simply put, he’s gone. Allardyce offered his resignation on Tuesday and the FA accepted it, saying he showed “a significant error of judgement and has apologized.”
He’s probably a good enough manager to land another job — it helps that he apologized — but it’s not a certainty. He just lost one of the most high-profile jobs in soccer in deeply embarrassing fashion, so at 61, other clubs might simply choose to stay away.
