FA farce as Smith embarrassment followed by Beattie fiasco

FARCE descended into fiasco as the England Football Association were forced to review James Beattie’s place in the England squad due to a drink-drive conviction — just hours after he had replaced Alan Smith.

Smith was called up as a replacement for Darius Vassell on Thursday, only for the FA to throw him out of the squad shortly after learning of his arrest earlier in the day.

They were then even forced into emergency talks over Beattie's place soon after calling him up, but resolved to keep him in the squad as they were "not looking retrospectively at cases".

It nevertheless added up to another embarrassing day for the FA and, especially, chief executive Mark Palios, who was forced into a series of startling admissions:

That he had no idea about Beattie's past drink-drive conviction and did not even know about his England call-up.

That there was "unacceptable" and "complete ignorance" at the FA about Nicky Butt's arrest for alleged assault earlier this year That the policy of whether players should be available for England squads was effectively being made up as the FA went along on an "ad-hoc" basis.

That it took until 6pm on Thursday for anyone to tell Palios about the astonishing communication breakdown which ensured that Smith was called up to the squad on the same day that he was arrested.

Such was Palios' discomfort at a press briefing that the anger of the England players at Smith's exclusion a month after Rio Ferdinand was similarly omitted became almost a side issue.

Smith was released on police bail after a pre-arranged police interview over claims that he threw a plastic bottle into the crowd in Leeds' Carling Cup tie against Man United.

Palios also insisted that Butt would have been unavailable for four months including the qualifier in Turkey while police investigated allegations of assault.

However, Palios was still startled to learn that Beattie had been sentenced to 100 hours' community service and a 30-month driving ban after being convicted of drink-driving last year.