Manchester United never approached Southgate, FA confirms, while admitting succession plan exists

The admission comes after months of speculation that Southgate was Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s favoured choice to lead United into a new era. Credit: PA

Gareth Southgate’s boss has revealed that Manchester United never approached him for permission to speak to the England manager about replacing Erik Ten Hag at Old Trafford.

The admission comes after months of speculation that Southgate was Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s favoured choice to lead United into a new era, and less than 24 hours after it was confirmed that Ten Hag will continue in the job after all and is discussing a new contract extension.

Southgate has always made it clear that he would not talk to any club while it had a manager in place.

On Wednesday, the FA’s CEO Mark Bullingham said this, about his top man being lured away from England: “I’ve had no approaches. There have been no approaches.”

Bullingham did however concede that he’d put in place a plan, should Southgate leave or underachieve at the Euros.

He insisted, however, that he had not had a single conversation with any potential successor.

“Any organisation has a succession plan in place for their top employees and we are no different to that", Bullingham said. "A succession plan normally includes everything from what you do short-term cover, through to a process you follow, through to a candidate pool.”

But does Bullingham believe Southgate has to win this tournament to stay in the job, assuming he wishes to?

“I think setting an arbitrary level isn’t the right way to go, I think we step back and look at everything after the tournament", he said. "We’ll see how he feels, see how we feel, see how the tournament’s gone.”

Bullingham also disclosed that the FA is subsidising the police to help prosecute anyone who abuses England’s players on social media during this tournament.

In an unprecedented move, the FA has contributed £25,000 towards a unit which will prepare cases.

“What we don't want to do is create a [evidence] pack that we give to the police and then they don’t have the resource to take that forward.

"So, we're actually paying for the prosecution to happen, and funding the police to make sure if there are instances of some of the vile abuse we've seen before that it gets prosecuted.”

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