Mark Sampson sacked as England Women’s football manager

Mark Sampson has been sacked as England Women’s manager a day after he watched his side thrash Russia 6-0 in a World Cup qualifying match.

The dramatic decision was announced by Football Association chief Martin Glenn at what The Independent described as a “hastily-convened press briefing at Wembley” yesterday afternoon.

Glenn took the step after reading an FA safeguarding report into Sampson, which was first published in 2015, in response to his behaviour at Bristol, where he ran the 16 to 19 programme and coached the club’s women’s first team.

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“The full report of that investigation was only made known to me at the end of last week,” Glenn said at the press conference.

“On reading it I immediately shared it with Greg [Clarke, FA chairman] and we were both deeply concerned with the contents of the report. Mark had overstepped the professional boundaries between player and coach.

“When I first read the report I absorbed it and took Greg through it and we both agreed that Mark’s position was untenable and we shared it with the board over the weekend.”

Sampson left Bristol Academy to become England women’s manager in December 2013, reports The Independent, and the following year the FA “was made aware of the allegations concerning his inappropriate relationships” in his previous job.

A safeguarding panel examined the allegations and subsequently cleared Sampson to continue to be a “participant in football”, although he was sent him on a development and mentoring programme to learn the appropriate boundaries between coach and player.

At yesterday’s press conference, Clarke said of the allegations levelled against Sampson that “some could be categorised as trivial, some as very serious, none as criminal”.

Sampson had already been the subject of unsavoury allegations, The Guardian reported last month, when Chelsea Ladies and England striker Eniola Aluko accused him of making racist comments.

He denied the claims, and was cleared of any wrongdoing by an independent investigation led by barrister Katharine Newton. The FA says that Aluko’s allegations had no bearing on his dismissal.

According to the Independent “an anonymous tip-off last week from someone outside the organisation” led the FA to re-examine the 2015 safeguarding report into Sampson and as a result he was relieved of his duties.

Asked to explain the failure to act after the report was initially published, Glenn said: “The safeguarding work was appropriate but we think the failing in our particular case was the organisation’s ability to balance the critical need for total confidentiality… with the judgement about how much of that information should be shared on more holistic decisions about general conduct.”

The Times claims that the FA was warned about Sampson’s reputation before they appointed him manager of the women’s team, with the paper quoting a source saying: “Everyone in the women’s game knew what Mark Sampson was like.”

Reacting to Sampson’s dismissal, sports minister Tracey Crouch described the situation as “a mess”, adding that it “raises very serious questions about whether the historic process that the FA had in place around the recruitment of coaches were appropriate, for something like this to have been missed”.