You can dress it up any which way you want but Fabio Capello has quit as England manager hours after saying he would not walk away from the job – and that can only mean the Italian resigned before he got the boot.
Congratulations are in order to the Football Association and their chairman David Bernstein for getting tough and all they need to do now, as I’ve been urging them for more than a year is to appoint Harry Redknapp.
There is no coincidence that the announcement came hours after the Spurs boss was dramatically cleared of tax evasion by a jury that delivered a unanimous verdict. Everyone knew that the Inland Revenue were wasting millions of pounds of public money with their ridiculous case against Harry and his ex-Portsounth boss Milan Mandaric.
It’s been a truly remarkable day – but no more than I predicted in my blog on Monday urging the FA to sack Capello and hire Harry as soon as he is cleared by the courts.
Redknapp has yet to be offered the job. But this time the FA will not get away with failing to appoint the people’s choice, as they did all those years ago when they failed to make outspoken genius Brian Clough the manager of England.
Never have I welcomed an FA statement more than this evening’s that read: “The Football Association can confirm that Fabio Capello has today resigned as England manager.”
The statement went on: “This follows a meeting involving FA chairman David Bernstein, FA general secretary Alex Horne and Fabio Capello at Wembley Stadium. The discussions focused on the FA board’s decision to remove the England team captaincy from John Terry, and Fabio Capello’s response through an Italian broadcast interview.
“In a meeting for over an hour, Fabio’s resignation was accepted and he will leave the post of England manager with immediate effect.”
Bernstein said the resignation was the right course of action and you can take that as all the confirmation you need that this was what the FA wanted.
There is no doubt that Redknapp will accept an FA offer to accept the England job – the only question will be whether or not he attempts to juggle the role with completing the season as Spurs manager.
