September 8 – The English Football Association fears that Britain’s exit from the European Union may hinder efforts to stage major tournaments in future and wants to find out whether Brexit had damaged relations within FIFA and UEFA.
New FA chairman Greg Clarke (pictured) believes his federation might find it tougher to build alliances as a result of the Brexit vote even though only roughly half of UEFA’s 55 members are EU members.
England failed dismally with bids for the 2006 and 2018 World Cups but did win the right to host the semi-finals and final at the first continent-wide European Championship finals in 2020.
But Clarke told reporters he was concerned as to “what Brexit does to our chances of a future tournament”.
“Can we count on EU support or will they vote for EU nations (for tournaments) in the future? I don’t know the answer to that, but we have to get to the bottom of that,” Clarke said.
“We have to build relations directly within UEFA now and not rely on the support of the EU nations because they might say we’ve got an EU member who wants it this year. So it’s doubly important to have really strong relationships in UEFA and FIFA and I’m going to be working hard at that.”
Clarke, who took over recently from Greg Dyke, says the FA may even have to consider sharing hosting with an EU nation. “It might be jointly hosted with an EU member,” he said of any potential future bid. “We are thinking about those things.”
Clarke, who was speaking at an event hosted by anti-discrimination group Kick It Out, also said he had scrapped the target set by Dyke that England should be world champions again by 2022. England exited Euro 2016 with a humiliating loss to Iceland, leading to Roy Hodgson being replaced as manager by Sam Allardyce.
“I’m not going to put pressure on Sam and say we are going to win this tournament or that tournament,” Clarke said. “But I want to see a competitive team.”
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