FA Chief Announces Departure Date

Last updated : 14 December 2018 By Three Lions

Martin Glenn will leave his role as the chief executive of the Football Association at the end of the season, Gareth Southgate's boss ending a four-year stint at the helm that has, from an England national team point of view, taken in very contrasting lows and highs.

It is possible to argue that an embarrasing Euro 2016 exit to Iceland followed by Sam Allardyce's abrupt departure and an insipid (although unbeaten) World Cup qualifying campaign left interest in the Three Lions at an all-time low point.

An early return home from Russia and the standing of the national team may never have recovered but we all know how the story unfolded over those glorious few weeks and how it has maintained its momentum through the Autumn.

As David Conn commented in The Guardian when talking about Glenn's planned departure, the connection between the long-term planning undertaken by the FA with its St George's Park project to instil a sense of continuity and belonging into all England teams and the euphoria generated by those heady Russian nights wasn't at the forefront of people's minds.

But although the ascension of Southgate to the top job was a happy accident that allowed the senior team to be the apex of the pyramid the foundations had been put in place already and resulted in excellent results at a number of tournaments, not just the World Cup.