FA’s Mark Bullingham defends English coaching system after hiring Thomas Tuchel

Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham insists the English coaching system is a success, but accepted the country is “not in that place” to have a handful of homegrown contenders for the national team job.

Thomas Tuchel will become England’s third overseas head coach for the men’s team when he starts work on January 1, raising questions over the strength and depth of top-level English coaches.

FA boss Bullingham said there were English candidates among the “approximately 10” people interviewed for the job, but former England defender Gary Neville claimed the decision to go for a foreign coach was a “big blow” to domestic managers.

The job profile published by the FA on July 19 – three days after Gareth Southgate’s exit – said the governing body was looking for someone with “a strong track record delivering results in the Premier League and/or leading international competitions”. No English boss has won the Premier League, and the last Englishman to win the European Cup was Joe Fagan back in 1984.

Bullingham sought to give his backing to the work being done to develop homegrown talent at the national football centre at St George’s Park, which he said had been “a really good success”.

“Our pathway is really strong, both from a coaches and players’ point of view,” Bullingham said.

“There are a lot of fantastic young coaches around and obviously (Tuchel’s assistant) Anthony (Barry) is one of those.

“I think any federation in the world that is looking to hire a senior manager, clearly you would love to have five to 10 domestic candidates who are coaching clubs in your domestic league, challenging and winning honours in your domestic league and European football. We are not quite in that place at the moment.

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