THE FA’s chief executive Martin Glenn believes Sam Allardyce’s departure in disgrace from the England job was a “tragedy”.
Glenn, who helped hire the former Sunderland boss and subsequently fired him 67 days later after his exposure in a newspaper sting about corruption in football, believed he would have made a successful England manager.
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Allardyce won his only match in charge, a 1-0 win over Slovakia, but was caught discussing how to circumvent third party ownership rules with reporters posing as wealthy businessmen.
After the story broke, the FA and Allardyce parted ways by mutual consent.
Glenn described Allardyce’s departure as “very disappointing”, explaining he had thought the former West Ham, Blackburn and Bolton manager could have triumphed in charge.
He told The Guardian: “He absolutely had the right criteria to be a successful England manager, to work on creating a team spirit and a team identity that I think has been lacking for a while.
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“It is a tragedy that we have ended up having to part company with him over the, the – you know – entrapment.”
Allardyce was given the job after England’s embarrassing exit at Euro 2016 when predecessor Roy Hodgson was in charge – only being able to take the country to the last 16.
Glenn conceded that he expected from England, claiming that if decisions had been different, they might have gone further in the competition.
He added: "It's the expectation that kills you.
"We went in with high expectations. There were no great teams, we had qualified really well, we had a young squad, we felt optimistic.
"I still think that with a different set of choices, with that squad we could have gone further."
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