With Sam Allardyce leaving his post as England Manager some people think the Daily Telegraph was wrong to engineer a situation where no crime had been committed until their involvement.
Personally I think they were right to expose someone they suspected of being open to corruption and it is no different from the vigilante groups who expose paedophiles by luring them in with fake social media profiles – the intention to commit the crime is there.
Either way it is a sad situation that the England FA are now looking for another manager, with Allardyce lasting 67 days since being appointed.
Surely the way to try to remedy the situation going forward will be for the FA to undertake more thorough due diligence on all future candidates for the job, especially the one they plan on offering the position to.
It is something all football clubs should do with players and managers and this episode goes to show it is not just useful for when they are signing an obscure young player from abroad.
Possibly because Sam Allardyce is well known in these parts that assumptions are made (wrongly) that we know all there is about someone who has been in the game for so many years as both a player and manager.
There was of course a 2006 BBC Panorama expose linking him and his son Craig Allardyce – in addition to other agents, players and managers – with illegal bungs for signing certain players. Allardyce denied the allegations and nothing was ever proven so he was able to continue his career within football.
So as well as doing a thorough investigation on the employee, the FA should also require the manager to undertake an initial compliance assessment, reminding him (or her) of the importance of the position and how they may now be subject to many more meeting requests by parties with vested interests.
I am not saying it is all down to the FA and Allardyce is blameless but there will be cases where the job is too big for the person and the right sort of pre-emptive action will help.
It might be wise to check for any skeletons in the closet and deal with them before making any jobs offers which would avoid a whole heap of embarrassment down the line and continue to have these compliance meetings to keep any potential issues at bay and reaffirm what’s acceptable by the England manager before greed kicks in again.
Perhaps the lofty position went to his head and he was flattered by the attention he received as England’s Head Coach but we’ll see whether any further action will be taken or if Allardyce just has to wait for the dust to settle before accepting his next job in the game.
Ben Gardner's Blog 