England Supporters Club

Martin Glenn: New England manager search is under way

Posted by Team England at 09:29 on Wednesday 29 June 2016

FA chief executive Martin Glenn says he will join technical director Dan Ashworth and vice-chairman David Gill to begin the process of appointing a new England manager.

Roy Hodgson resigned from the role after the Three Lions’ Euro 2016 exit, following a 2-1 defeat to Iceland in Nice on Monday evening.

And Glenn paid tribute to Hodgson following his four-year reign at the helm, as the search for a new boss begins.

"I want to publicly thank Roy on behalf of The FA. He’s spent four years building a team and from the position he inherited it to the team today, it’s a much stronger team and a much stronger setup.

"Roy, Iceland is not your epitaph or legacy, there’s a lot to be grateful for what your team have done.

"I think it’s also important to call out Roy’s tremendous integrity. He’s a man of great honour, the manner in which Roy chose to step down is in very positive contrast to what has happened with previous England managers and it’s a mark of the man."

Following the England team’s return from France on Tuesday evening, the process of appointing a new manager to lead the national team will continue, with the trio aiming to consult far and wide within the game.

"The process for finding a new manager is underway and there will be three people from The FA that will be in charge of it, Dan Ashworth, myself and David Gill.

"We will be the triumvirate that will start the process, so we will harness opinion and wisdom from the wider part of the game.



"It’s really important that we get this right and get England into a situation where we can build on the strength that we’ve got.

"We think we’ve got a lot of strength in the squad to take it forward with a view to the World Cup in Russia, so it’s important that we make the right decision.

"We’ll be canvassing opinion from former managers, current managers, clubs and players to make sure we get a lot of wisdom into this area.

"We need a new manager, but we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, there are a lot of good things that have been done in the England set-up that we can build on.

"But we’re not denying the fact that the perennial problem of when we get to the business end of a tournament, England seem brittle and we need to understand why that is.

"It’s not a particular issue Roy has had to face, people before Roy have faced it too.

"So we want to move to a new approach and a new management team and it’s our commitment to say that in future football tournaments we will punch our weight and go to tournaments as contenders."

Reflecting on the Euro 2016 campaign itself, Glenn revealed The FA had tried to make a difference with the preparation for the squad.

And he admits that is also something which will be looked at for the future.

"We tried some things differently: we got the players earlier from the clubs, we went around the country so the players could experience going from city to city and we shared medical records for the first time," he explained.

"So we felt we’d really given the team and squad, and the country, the best possible chance of success by doing things differently.

"But it’s clearly not enough, as evidence would suggest, and I’m not being blind to that – we need to do more."