Southgate rules out return to Premier League management
Gareth Southgate told The Amol Rajan Connection on 15 October 2026 that he does not see himself returning to club management in the Premier League. He resigned as England manager after guiding the team to the final of Euro 2024, which they lost to Spain.
Southgate is 56 and has been out of management since a three-year spell with Middlesbrough from 2006. He also took England to the Euro 2020 final.
When asked if he would consider a return to managing in the Premier League, he said: "I don't see a scenario where I do that." He went on to describe a loss of enjoyment towards the end of his England tenure, saying: "Towards the end of my time with England, I stopped enjoying, at the very least for a period, the wins keep you going. By the end, I didn't even enjoy the wins for any longer than a couple of minutes. So, I've hardly watched football."
Southgate said he had gone to the FA Cup final to see his team, Crystal Palace, win their first trophy and added: "I've not been to a football ground since. So my sort of desire to be involved in football has changed." Since leaving the England role he has worked in the media, fronted a BBC documentary in which he travelled across the UK to understand challenges facing young men and boys, and spent time as a visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School in Boston.
Reflecting on his post-England period, Southgate said: "I've loved the last 18 months of my life. I've had 37 years where my sense of self depended on did I win or lose on Saturday. And actually I've loved having different experiences. I've met politicians, I've met people in the media industry, I have learned about leadership in all sorts of areas, I've travelled around the world learning things. I've just enjoyed playing a different film in my life."
Last month an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of the majority of charges relating to breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, concluding the club arranged "sham contracts" and was "relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs"; the club have denied any wrongdoing.
On the verdict, Southgate said: "There'll be the tribal fans' response to punish Manchester City as much as we can, relegate them, fine them, do whatever you can." He added: "I've been in football boardrooms, I've been in meetings with Uefa, I've been in meetings with Fifa, I have been in all these spaces and I know how complicated all of this is. My underlying thought is none of this is good for football and there are no winners because if you're at the Premier League, for a very brief moment you might feel justified that all the flak you've had for this case taking so long, this is why it's taken so long and there's the verdict, and I'm sure there's an element of justification in that. Then there's this realisation of how do we deal with all of this because you know the possibility of all the different legal cases that emerge from this, how long this could still take, what's the right sort of punishment, how do you keep the whole game on track?"
The club have submitted an appeal against the commission's findings, lodging that appeal on 2 October.
