The charges against Butt were dropped last month The charges against Butt were dropped last month.Reading from the statement, Beckham said: "We are extremely disappointed at the way the FA have handled ... the treatment of team-mates Rio Ferdinand and Alan Smith, which has undermined the position of the manager and could have seriously affected morale and team spirit ..."We have a concern that the FA are reacting to outside pressures which impacts unfairly on the manager and the players. The Southampton striker James Beattie is 14 months through a 30-month ban for drink-driving but was allowed to stay in the squad because his case had been dealt with in the courts.It was also revealed that Manchester United's Nicky Butt had played three times for England this summer despite being under investigation by police after false assault allegations - because the FA was unaware he had been arrested. And Eriksson? Ditto, except that the coach will eventually feel that he can happily live without it.. The England football squad led by captain David Beckham launched a blistering attack on the Football Association yesterday, accusing the body of mishandling team selection, undermining morale and caving in to "outside pressures". (Was it really necessary for Smith to be arrested - a word that spawns dramatic headlines and drastic action - for an alleged offence about which nobody, including the supposed victim, has actually complained?)"No, I didn't expect it to be as bad as this, but I've taken the job and I have to learn to live with it," Adam Crozier's successor admitted yesterday. That would be bad enough even without outside bodies, from the World Anti-Doping Agency to the Government and the police, exerting unwanted influence. I'm not necessarily on a crusade to clean up the game, I'm in a job to make sure we do the best we can in the best interests of the game and improve it The intention is to make the right decisions. If we have to make decisions that are unpopular, we'd still make them. It's not an ego trip with me, I don't find it pleasant at all when people have suggested that." He is already being called worse, "clueless" being the favoured adjective in yesterday's popular prints.The former Tranmere midfielder has inherited an organisation strong on mission statements, less so on fundamental points of principle, information and commun- ication.
David Beckham, defending his friend and former club-mate, said: "Our point is that you're innocent until proven guilty. The relationship with the FA is not good at the moment and we've got to have a meeting now to hear why these decisions are being made. I'm not going to pick Mark Palios out, but the whole system is wrong."Palios is prepared to play Mr Nasty when there is a tough decision to be made, while claiming that he has not embarked on some kind of moral rearmament campaign to whiten football's current grubby image: "In terms of wanting to get tough, I don't think I've ever said that anywhere. Butt would have been banned from the critical Turkey game had anyone at the FA realised he had been arrested, but in the event he was found not guilty of an alleged assault. That is why leading FA officials were so relaxed about Eriksson lending his name to the players' cause when the Ferdinand case blew up, and will remain so now that all the coaching staff have united behind the squad in putting out their official statement yesterday.The Swede later cited the case of Nicky Butt, as much as Smith and Ferdinand, in questioning current policy. It still doesn't take you away from the fact that what he wants to concentrate on is the football."One of the benefits of having a former professional footballer as chief executive is that he appreciates the most important relationship is the one between the coach and players. It was frustration, not anger; he's not an angry man."My conversations with him have been very professional, he understands our position even if he doesn't necessarily agree with it. |
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