FA insist Lionesses boss Sarina Wiegman is not available for any price, as England mastermind gears up for yet another final

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

FA chief executive Mark Bullingham declared that Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman is not available to a rival nation at any price, should England retain their European title on Sunday and others call him to try and poach her.
Asked at the England hotel on Thursday what his response would be to a rival CEO ringing up and asking 'how many millions have we got to pay for Sarina?', Bullingham replied: 'She's not for sale. Not at any price.'
Bullingham's decision to declare before the European Championships that Wiegman would be retained as manager whatever the outcome came close to seeming an error of judgement, when Sweden took England to penalties and the relative minnows from Italy were 30 seconds away from beating them in Tuesday's semi-final. But a third successive final for England under Wiegman, whose FA salary is understood to be around £1.25million a year, has justified the chief executive's confidence.
Bullingham fell short on Thursday of suggesting that Wiegman might come under consideration for the job of manager of the England men's team when Thomas Tuchel 's contract expires after next summer's World Cup. Wiegman's own deal runs to the end of the Women's World Cup in Brazil, the following summer.
He said: 'My answer is the same now as it was in 2023. The starting point is it is almost disrespectful to assume the men's job is more senior to the women's. That is not the way we view it. I said two years ago Sarina could do any job in football, she is an amazing talent and we are delighted to have her running the women's team through to 2027.'
Bullingham indicated that planning to replace Wiegman – if her contract was not extended – would begin in 2026.
'I'm pretty focused on Sunday,' he said, when asked when the recruitment process would start. 'But generally you're looking at ideally a tournament cycle out, if not a year out, that's when you'd know roughly whether the coach wants to carry on.
'But we haven't had any of those discussions yet. We haven't quite started working on the plans for [post] 2027. I know her focus, hopefully after success on Sunday, will shift quite quickly to 2027.'
Social media platforms yet to apologise or trigger racial abuse investigation
By Ian Herbert and Tara Anson-Walsh
FA chief executive Bullingham also revealed on Thursday that social media platforms have made no contact with him to apologise or suggest they are investigating the racial abuse of England player Jess Carter.
Bullingham said little has changed since Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka faced despicable abuse after missing penalties at the men's Euros three years ago and indicated that he expects communications regulator Ofcom to use new legislation to take action against platforms.
The FA would not reveal which platforms was use posted racial to England defender Carter, citing the confidentiality of their work with police. It is understood that there was more than one.
But with the possibility of a black player like 19-year-old star striker Michelle Agyemang taking a spot kick in Sunday's final against Spain, Bullingham expressed his frustration with the lack of progress since Gareth Southgate's black players were abused at the 2021 Euros.
He said: 'We haven't seen the progress we'd like to have seen. We did think things would improve [after 2021] and we lobbied very hard together with Kick it Out and other representatives in football to make sure the Online Harms Act came through. I think we would have liked it to have been stronger in some cases.
'I think now it's incumbent on Ofcom to make sure they really do bring those responsible for running social media platforms to account. I haven't seen huge progress in the last couple of years. We would like to see it now.'
Bullingham said that the FA would be pursuing 'different tools' to reduce the abuse. One option would be to boycott platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, which allow the abuse to get through. But the Lionesses, who do not command huge salaries like the men, have found important commercial value in those platforms as promotional channels.
Manager Sarina Wiegman has said she leaves it to players to decide how much they want to be on social media – and midfielder Keira Walsh has been off it for months.
Wiegman said: 'We make principles of how to use social media when and I would never say you're not allowed to use social media because that's not how I work. We want to set standards, but I think coaching is about helping developments but also giving players responsibility – from being dependent to independent and let help players make their own decisions.'
Despite claiming to have AI technology to prevent users posting racist messages to players, the platforms are allowing the material to get through. 'There has been a lot of focus on taking down content and I think they could be better at taking down content,' Bullingham said. 'But, more importantly, they could be much better at preventing it as well and then aiding prosecution when it happens. So they need to be better.'
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that at least half of the abuse players are facing comes from outside the UK. Tackling overseas abuse entails involving governing bodies like UEFA and FIFA. Bullingham said the FA had been working with them.