With World Cup qualifying games just a month away and a warm-up match looming in two weeks, England will be looking for a new coach if the Football Association (FA) decides to fire Sven-Goran Eriksson on Thursday.
The 141-year-old FA, which governs the game in England and formulated the rules of the game more than a century ago, has been thrown into crisis after revelations that England coach Eriksson and the organisation’s chief executive, Mark Palios, both had affairs with Faria Alam, a 38-year-old FA secretary.
The England coach has been forced to answer questions about how the FA came to first deny the affairs and later admit they had taken place. If it is shown that he misled the FA, then the FA has grounds to fire him.
In his only comment on the scandal, Eriksson issued a statement last Thursday saying he had ”at no time either categorically confirmed or denied any relationship with Ms Faria Alam”.
Palios, who had been chief executive for 13 months, resigned on Sunday in the light of how the affairs became public knowledge.
The media believe that Eriksson won’t lose his job. But, according to some newspapers, FA chairperson Geoff Thompson and executive director David Davies could also lose theirs because of the disarray inside the association.
Head of communications Colin Gibson, who is reported to have agreed a deal with a tabloid to give all the details of the Eriksson affair as long as Palios’s name was left out, has offered his resignation.
The FA is yet to make a decision on Gibson’s future; Alam, after taking some vacation, has been talking to the FA’s lawyers.
The secretary at the heart of the scandal has said nothing in public but reportedly has turned down an offer of £300 000 pounds to sell her story. She may also be looking for a new job after Thursday’s FA board meeting at a secret location.
In the three days since Palios quit, reporters, photographers and camera teams have been camped outside the FA’s headquarters while the association’s hierarchy has agonised over what to do.
The FA issued a statement on Wednesday saying that those who had given evidence to its legal advisers, such as Eriksson and Alam, did need to attend its meeting somewhere in central London.
If it decides to fire Eriksson, who five months ago signed a two-year extension to his contract until 2008, the FA may have to pay him up to £14-million compensation.
It also has to find a replacement ahead of the August 18 friendly against Ukraine, which is part of the build-up to World Cup qualifying games in September.
It’s likely that would be the former West Ham star Trevor Brooking, who is the FA’s highly respected ”director of development” and spent short spells in charge of the Hammers before they were relegated two seasons ago. — Sapa-AP