Football: Hoddle pay rise 'linked to success'

GLENN HODDLE is likely to be given a pay rise of pounds 100,000 a year but the increase will be dependent upon the England coach taking the national side to the Euro 2000 finals.

Hoddle is understood to have resumed pay negotiations with Graham Kelly, the Football Association's chief executive, and the new deal is likely to be finalised when the FA's international sub-committee, which controls contract and pay negotiations, meets next week.

Talks about Hoddle's pay were postponed for two weeks due to England's qualifying matches against Bulgaria and Luxembourg, and England's poor performances in those games had led to speculation over whether Hoddle would even stay in the job, let alone receive a pay rise.

It now appears an outline agreement has been reached that will see Hoddle's salary increased by 40 per cent from its current level, estimated to be around pounds 250,000 a year. In a solution which will placate many critics, up to three-quarters of the extra money on offer will be performance-related, dependent upon results and qualification for the Euro 2000 finals.

Last week Hoddle defended his right to a pay rise despite England's demise since the World Cup by saying he had turned down the chance to almost treble his salary just a couple of months ago if he had agreed to a longer- term deal. "He [Hoddle] is entitled to have his contract looked at in the light of what managers of other top international teams are paid and in the light of those performances," Kelly said.

Yesterday another controversy concerning Hoddle looked as if it may be nearer to being resolved when the radio show host Danny Kelly appeared to back down over claims that he and his fellow presenter Danny Baker made about a tape recording which allegedly contains a dispute between Hoddle and his captain, Alan Shearer.

Hoddle and the FA have challenged the producers of the Baker and Kelly radio phone-in show to produce the tape, supposedly made after last week's 3-0 win in Luxembourg and said to include a heated exchange in which Shearer allegedly asks Hoddle if he had ever considered himself to be the reason the side have been underperforming.

Baker said a recording had been passed around the England players who were "killing themselves laughing" after listening to it on their personal stereos while on the team coach. "We had a call from a friend of Danny Kelly's who is a top English footballer at the highest level, and he said there is a tape of Alan Shearer and Glenn Hoddle," Baker had said.

After calls from Hoddle and the FA's director of public affairs David Davies to clarify matters, however, Kelly said: "First and foremost, I cannot confirm or deny the content of the tape, or even the existence of the tape. Because of the sensitivity of the source of the story, of its existence, to do so would be unfair."

Kelly went on to claim: "However, it is worth pointing out that the very fact that the entire press corps, England management and FA hierarchy are running around talking about a recording that could have only been made by an England player or official and would have had to have been made in the very inner sanctum of the England team's dressing-room shows the incredible atmosphere that now surrounds the England manager and his team."

"The current hue and cry is probably a welcome distraction from actual happenings in the England camp after the Luxembourg game."