Eriksson’s England era became a celebrity circus – but he wanted to enjoy life and was never bitter
Sven-Göran Eriksson doubted so much whether England could ever have a foreign manager that an initial approach was considered a joke.
Intrigued eventually by the ground-breaking opportunity, rather than being deterred by the indignation, the Swede would launch the Three Lions into five of the most frenzied years in their history.
Everything belied his suave demeanour – from allowing a celebrity culture to consume the team to being an unlikely headline-making lothario himself and, even, showing passion while delivering results for his adopted country.
It was a blessing and burden to inherit a Golden Generation of talent of David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and co – captivating the country with dazzling one-off displays but unable to deliver when it mattered most under the weight of expectation and pressure.
It is the failure to overcome the constant quarter-final barrier and lift a trophy that shaped Eriksson’s England legacy where football too often seemed secondary.
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But the Eriksson era did provide a mirror to the nation at the start of the new millennium.
How the public’s ravenous appetite to gaze into the private lives of the stars – and the legalities of intrusive tabloid reporting – was stretched to extremes, and only unearthed years later.
How patriotism could seem parochial or xenophobic – just as the Premier League was the platform for England opening up to the world.
For a coach arriving after league and cup wins with Lazio, it proved perplexing that his suitability focused on his nationality over coaching credentials.
“We’ve sold our birthright down the fjord to a nation of seven million skiers and hammer throwers who spend half their lives in darkness.”
The Daily Mail headline set the tone for his introductory news conference.
Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2019. Pic: Reuters
He did try to sing God Save The Queen, feeling emotional as he realised the national standing he quickly assumed from 2001.
And doubters – some at least – were won over spectacularly on the turf of England’s greatest rival.
A 5-1 humiliation of Germany in Munich was followed a month later by another iconic moment of Eriksson’s reign – Beckham’s free kick that sealed a spot at the 2002 World Cup.
But the highs came in qualifying, falling short – always at the quarter-finals stage – in his three tournaments.
Too often it seemed more about fame than football around this England generation.
The high – or low – point of that came at his second and final World Cup in 2006.
Sven-Goran Eriksson at the 2006 World Cup with England. Pic: PA
As if managing Beckham, Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard wasn’t challenging enough, this was the era of the WAGs.
The celebrity circus around the Baden-Baden team base in Germany saw the players’ wives and girlfriends indulging in the media attention.
The insatiable appetite for a trophy matched the front page fodder the team – and their manager – provided.
Eriksson wanted to enjoy life but his privacy was exploited by the dark arts of tabloids.
Intimate details of affairs that the papers had a role in playing matchmaker to.
“I met Ulrika Jonsson on 8 December 2001, at some party hosted by the Daily Express, or maybe it was the Daily Star,” he recalled.
“The FA wanted me to travel around to various newspapers to be courteous and meet the editors. I visited the News Of The World too.”
It was the paper – closed in scandal by Rupert Murdoch in 2011 – he would blame for ending his England reign.
The notorious ‘fake sheikh’ had been used to trap him in a fictitious approach by Aston Villa ahead of the 2006 World Cup.
“I was extremely disappointed because I was sacked because of that,” Eriksson said. “I never accepted or understood that the News Of The World is so important… because I told the people at the FA – you believe in them or me.”
Who he could believe and trust was called into question by what he only later discovered was phone hacking.
Voicemail interceptions were linked to being behind the Daily Mirror’s revelation of his relationship with TV presenter Jonsson – another Swede who made it big in Britain.
“I think the football media was rather good. Sometimes they tried to kill me,” he said. “The other part of the media, that was a little bit of a surprise for me, because I wasn’t used to that.”
But he was never bitter – returning to English football to manage Manchester City just before the influx of Abu Dhabi wealth, dropping into the fourth division during a bizarre, brief spell as Notts County’s director of football and taking on a second-tier job at Leicester.
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The breadth of managerial roles after England – at three Chinese clubs, and the Mexico, Ivory Coast and Philippines national teams – showed Eriksson was happiest in the dugout.
“As a player I was not good at all,” he recalled. “I was not good enough to play first division in Sweden well, so the best decision I ever took in my professional career was when Tord Grip came to me and said, ‘It’s better you stop playing and be my assistant coach.’
“And that was when I was 27. So I had much better luck as a coach than a player for sure.”
The affection following Eriksson revealing his cancer diagnosis in January 2024 even allowed an emotional farewell to English football at Anfield by fulfilling a wish to manage Liverpool, as revealed on Sky News.
And assessments of his England reign seem more dispassionate as the trophy drought has gone on.
His immediate successor – Steve McClaren – didn’t qualify for Euro 2008 – and it took 12 years for an England men’s manager to win a knockout game.
But in his dying days, Eriksson was still thinking back to the 2006 World Cup.
“We should have done better,” he said. “So the criticism I and the team took after that tournament I think was fair.”
But what he could still never accept was why some questioned his right to ever have the job.
And while breaking new ground by becoming England’s first foreign manager, the nationality debate endures whenever an FA appointment is needed.
“There were people who did not like I was not English,” he lamented in retirement.
Birmingham band UB40 say the city’s striking bin workers and their union should “keep fighting” in their dispute over pay.
It comes as the government and the council urged them to accept a “fair and reasonable offer”.
“We’re fully on their side,” drummer Jimmy Brown told Sky News. “I think they shouldn’t give up, they should still be fighting.
“Working people shouldn’t have to take a reduction in their incomes, which is what we’re talking about here.
“We’re talking about people being paid less and it seems to me with prices going up, heating, buying food, inflation and rents going up then people need a decent wage to have a half decent life… keep going boys!”
Members of the Unite union in Birmingham earlier this month. Pic: PA
Workers joined picket lines again on Thursday, with some fearing they could be up to £600 a month worse off if they accept the terms.
“We have total utter support for the bin men and all trade unions,” said guitarist Robin Campbell.
“The other side is always going to say they’ve made a reasonable offer – the point is they’re the ones who’ve messed up, they’re the ones who’ve gone bankrupt, they’re the ones now trying to reduce the bin men’s wages.”
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Lead singer Matt Doyle told Sky News: “It’s a shame that what we’re seeing is all the images of rats and rubbish building up, that is going to happen inevitably, but we’ve just got to keep fighting through that.”
About 22,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the city’s streets after a major incident was declared last month by Birmingham City Council.
Rubbish has blighted the city’s streets for weeks . Pic: PA
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Bin situation ‘pains me’ – council boss
On a visit to the city, local government minister Jim McMahon said the union and local authority should continue to meet in “good faith” and the government felt there was a deal that could be “marshalled around”.
He paid tribute to the “hundreds of workers” who have worked “around the clock” to clear the rubbish.
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“As we stand here today, 85% of that accumulated waste has been cleared and the council have a plan in place now to make sure it doesn’t accumulate going forward,” said Mr McMahon.
Sky News understands talks are not set to resume until next week.
Trans women in British Transport Police custody will now be strip searched by male officers – not female – following Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling.
The force said it is introducing an “interim position” while it digests the Supreme Court’s decision that the definition of a “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
A British Transport Police (BTP) Authority spokesman told Sky News: “Under previous policy, we had advised that someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) may be searched in accordance with their acquired sex.
“However, as an interim position while we digest today’s judgment, we have advised our officers that any same sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.”
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In September last year, BTP, which is responsible for policing the UK’s railways and similar transport systems, published its “position” on transgender and non-binary officers carrying out strip searches.
It said officers would “only be able to search persons of the same sex on their birth or gender recognition certificate (GRC).
Officers who identified as another gender but who did not have a GRC were not allowed to, but if a trans woman had a certificate, they could strip search a female detainee.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Strip searches involve the removal of more than a jacket, outer coat, gloves, headwear and footwear.
They “expose buttocks, genitalia and (female) breasts”, the BTP guidance says.
The Sex Matters campaign applied for a judicial review of that guidance with the High Court in December.
It said the policy “puts detainees at risk of sexual harassment and sexual assault”, and said it was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
Sex Matters said the policy “also puts female officers in a humiliating and dangerous position, as they may be pressured to search trans-identified men”.
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Campaigners celebrated outside the Supreme Court after Wednesday’s ruling. Pic: PA
One of the High Court judges who made Wednesday’s decision, Lord Hodge, said the ruling should not be read as “a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another”.
Government minister Karin Smyth told Sky News public bodies have been told to look at how equality laws are implemented following the ruling.
She said: “Obviously, public bodies have been asked to look at their own guidance.
“And we will do that very, very carefully.”
But she warned against public bodies making statements “that may alarm people”, telling them to take their time to look at their guidance.
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling means there is “no confusion” now.
She said the NHS will “have to change” its 2019 policy, which says transgender patients are entitled to be accommodated on single-sex wards matching how they identify.
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