Lawyers back Eriksson stance

Legal opinion is mounting against the Football Association and their apparent desire to get rid of Sven-Goran Eriksson.

The 56-year-old’s fate is due to be decided at a special meeting of the 12-man FA board next Thursday, the next crucial stage in a self-inflicted saga which now seems certain to end with either Eriksson losing his job or at least one senior figure within the governing body being forced to resign.

Officials from Soho Square still seem hell-bent on dismissing Eriksson for gross misconduct if it is proven that he misled his employers over his relationship with FA secretary Faria Alam, precipitating the PR shambles that followed.

This, despite the fact that Article 8 of the Human Rights Act enshrines any employee’s right to keep their private life private.

The FA have already been advised by external legal opinion they risk humiliation in the courts should Eriksson opt to fight any dismissal which attempts to circumvent the £14m (€21.2m) compensation the Swede believes he is entitled to under the terms of his new £5m (7.6m)-a-year contract.

Eriksson has already insisted he ’neither categorically confirmed nor denied’ a relationship with Alam to the FA and had no knowledge of the embarrassingly-incorrect statements released in response to newspaper reports of the affair.

While the ’urgent inquiry’ set up by furious FA chairman Geoff Thompson to unearth precise details of how the governing body’s spin machine got it so badly wrong continues, Eriksson has been carrying on as normal, insisting he plans to guide England to the 2006 World Cup.

Eriksson was at the Amsterdam ArenA to watch Arsenal last night and is due at Old Trafford on Tuesday to see Manchester United take on PSV Eindhoven.

The public charade of business as usual is at odds with his position, which, given the events of the last fortnight, is untenable as long as Thompson, chief executive Mark Palios, executive director David Davies and communications director Colin Gibson all remain in their posts.

At differing levels, the quartet are all responsible for the ’distress’ Eriksson claims to be suffering and caused the thinly-disguised challenge to sack him if they dare statement issued on Thursday, a call reinforced by Tord Grip 24 hours later.

With TV revenues falling and the £757million lead weight of the new Wembley hanging round their necks, the FA have nowhere near enough spare cash available to ease Eriksson out amicably.

Public sympathy appears to be with the Swede. Certainly the England players, to whom he has been so loyal in the past, are right behind him with David Beckham and Frank Lampard leading the calls for Eriksson to be left to get on with his job amid vague threats of strike action if the manager is removed from his lucrative post.

Even more importantly, the legal profession seem to be on his side too, with serious questions being raised about the wisdom of dismissing an individual over what was a private matter that has been allowed to spiral out of all control.

“The FA are not entitled to inquire into Mr Eriksson’s private life,” said Russell Brown, senior partner with Manchester-based Glaisyers solicitors and an expert in contract law.

“In all my years of practice, I have only ever come across a case like this once before. I am sure Sven’s lawyers are advising him that legally, the FA haven’t got a leg to stand on and if the case ended up in court he could take them to the cleaners.

“Quite why the FA are being advised to release the statements they have I am not sure. I think they would have been far better not saying anything at all.

“There is a grey area in cases such as this, particularly if someone is conducting a relationship in work time but if the FA pushed that one, it would smack of a clear lack of consistency since Mark Palios was apparently seeing the same woman.”

Of crucial importance to the FA inquiry is what lines of communication were opened the night the initial statement was released claiming there had been no relationship between Eriksson and Alam.

The England coach has insisted he had no knowledge any statement was being drafted and wasn’t consulted about its content.

If that is proven, the jobs of the men responsible for compiling and releasing the statement will be in severe jeopardy, particularly if it is also upheld that at no stage did Eriksson suggest there was no relationship.

The Swede has already referred back to previous reporting of his personal relationships – notably with TV celebrity Ulrika Jonsson – when he made absolutely no comment either to his employers or the wider public.

He believes he had a tacit understanding with the FA that he would never offer an opinion about any of his personal relationships and is adamant he stuck to that philosophy when he was informed the Alam story was about to break.

After a fortnight of negative publicity, with the opening World Cup qualifier in Poland less than six weeks away and the first friendly of the campaign against the Ukraine due to take place at St James’ Park on August 18, the FA board are now approaching the biggest collective decision will ever have to make.

And sadly for them, what is becoming increasingly obvious is rather than put a lid on the whole sorry mess as Thompson had hoped, Thursday’s meeting will only tip the FA into a fresh pile of controversy.