Brooking 'not qualified' for FA job: Allardyce

Bolton manager Sam Allardyce today said he was ‘outraged’ by the appointment of an ‘unqualified’ Trevor Brooking as the Football Association’s director of football development.

Allardyce claims Brooking’s appointment was made for good publicity and revealed the League Managers’ Association had complained to the FA.

“I do feel very strongly – and all the managers I have spoken to feel the same – that he is not qualified to be doing the job he has just started as director of football development for the FA,” Allardyce says in his column in The Times.

“When I say that he’s not qualified, I mean precisely that. He hasn’t got the UEFA Pro Licence or the UEFA Pro Licence Diploma, qualifications that every coach, manager and director of football across Europe is required to have.

“Like many managers I have spent a lot of time and money over the past five years getting qualified, only for the FA to appoint someone completely unqualified for one of their top jobs.

“The League Managers’ Association is absolutely flabbergasted by this decision and has made representations to the FA about it.

“Needless to say, there has not been an adequate response as yet. All the FA has said is that Trevor’s job is split into three roles and that the technical side is only a third of his mandate.

“The FA might consider that an explanation, but I consider it an even greater outrage.”