Wise words: Stuart Pearce, who will take charge of England's friendly with Holland, shares a moment with Capello

No bad place to be. Unless your new manager turns out to have issued an apology for making a racist insult to an England team-mate, Paul Ince, some years ago as a player, and has a brother in the British National Party.

It is brutal, the England inspection; and not particularly consistent or fair. Pearce’s sibling or his comment to Ince during a match between Nottingham Forest and Manchester United in 1994 has never held him back as England Under 21 coach or manager of Team GB at the London Olympics. Yet this is the problem with constructing board policy on the hoof. It gives the cynical motivation to shine light into every dark corner.

Mark Palios was the last FA chief executive who thought he could establish firm principles without legal back-up, and the resulting chaos over the demotion of Alan Smith from the squad greatly hurt his credibility. That was in 2004.

Yet, almost eight years have since passed without the FA feeling the need to draw up a code of conduct — there have been three attempts and another is under way — or offer plain guidelines and a coherent policy relating to players with court dates pending.

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