Greed and arrogance Allardyce’s position untenable

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  • Sam Allardyce.

    In the wake of England’s dismal display at Euro 2016, the consensus as to why the Three Lions had failed so spectacularly in France was due to the players not caring.  A generation of over-paid, over-indulged players who had lost touch with the importance of what it meant to represent your country.

    It was an extension of the famous anecdote of Stuart Pearce who, in 2007, asked a young player at Manchester City he’d prefer an England cap or a Ferrari. The answer wasn’t the one Pearce wanted.

    Greed and the relentless pursuit of money and luxury had eaten away at the national game and its result was the apparent apathy its elite players showed international football. It’s an idea that, in part, helped secure Sam Allardyce the job as Roy Hodgson’s successor. A back-to-basics, heart-on-the-sleeve, working class figure who can restore pride and rediscover this lost concept of passion.

    Except as we’ve learned in the last 24 hours, greed is a sin that isn’t just restricted to players.

    Within a few weeks of accepting a £3million contract as the world’s best-paid international manager, Allardyce was filmed using his newly-acquired status negotiating shady deals with mystery Far East investors for £400,000.

    With public confidence in the England national team at an all-time low due to a series of successive tournament failures and a general feeling of disenfranchisement with multi-millionaire players detached from reality, the absolute last thing the FA needed was their bastion of traditional values becoming another standard-bearer of the evils of the game.

    Allardyce is ​also not the only one who’s been humiliated here.

    The judgement of the three men who ultimately selected him – FA chief executive Martin Glenn, technical director Dan Ashworth and vice chairman David Gill – has been questioned and whether or not they performed adequate due diligence on their candidate.

    It’s all well and good embarrassing yourself, but when your paymasters become collateral damage, then you’re in real trouble.

    The 61-year-old has either ignored or totally failed to understand the idea of why being England manager isn’t the same as taking charge of Sunderland, West Ham or Bolton. You’re public property​ and ​the foremost representative​ of your country’s football history, traditions and ideas.

    The FA, the world’s oldest football association, is understandably proud of its position and reputation. It is, to all intents and purposes, a moral arbiter of the game.​ ​Pride, integrity, excellence and collaboration are the four pillars that form the FA’s own England DNA, as detailed on their website. On each concept, Allardyce has fallen short.

    But its influence stretches far beyond the boundaries of England. It has been one of the few associations to readily speak up against FIFA, UEFA and the various controversies emanating from those institutions over the years.​ ​How would it look, when you’ve pointed all those fingers, made all that noise, to have so much ethical doubt surrounding your highest-paid employee?

    You can debate the severity of the allegations levelled against Allardyce and whether or not they justify him having to leave his job (although the belief is there’s more still to emerge). But it was his arrogance and greed which put himself in this position and, overall, a total disregard for the virtues the FA are trying to instil in the English game.

    ​He, and he alone, had made his position ​untenable.

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