Eriksson has had enough, says UEFA chief

Sven-Goran Eriksson pulled out of a conference looking back at the World Cup because he was fed up with accusations of incompetence from his critics, according to UEFA president Lennart Johansson.

Eriksson was due to be a guest speaker at the FIFA international football symposium in Berlin but Johansson, a Swede like Eriksson, said the former England manager had nothing to gain by coming.

Johansson said: “He has had enough. He thinks people have being saying what a s**t he is and how incompetent he is, and that, just because England have won now a match, people are saying how bad he was.

“He has his money and will still try to have his pride, instead of standing here in Berlin with nobody listening to him because he failed to bring the World Cup to England.”

Johansson said that Eriksson had also endured too many invasions of privacy.

He added: “I don’t defend him, and there are things he did he should have avoided, but I can understand that he had had enough.

“He has tried to adapt to the style where you hunt people all through the night but he has had enough.”

Eriksson had been invited to be among the VIP speakers alongside World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi and France’s Raymond Domenech but pulled out at the weekend.