Hoddle in new row with Saints

Adrian Curtis13 April 2012

Tottenham manager Glenn Hoddle goes home to White Hart Lane tonight amid fresh acrimony about his departure from Southampton.

Spurs face bottom club Bradford in the first Premiership match, and first home game, since Hoddle's appointment as manager.

But Hoddle is furious that Southampton are pressing ahead with an official protest about the way he left them.

Hoddle accused Saints' chairman Rupert Lowe of trying to "stain his character."

Lowe has held preliminary discussions about the affair with Premiership chief executive Richard Scudamore and is currently preparing a timetable of events to back his claim that Spurs were guilty of "poaching" Hoddle and breached the league's code of conduct about approaches to managers.

Hoddle said: "It's not true and I can put that on record. There was no poaching. Tottenham approached Rupert and then I got a telephone call from him asking me if I wanted to talk to them. I think that maybe he is trying to deflect attention from the fact that he allowed me to talk to them. If it was true it would be a stain on my character, but it is not, so I can live with myself."

Tottenham hoped the whole matter would be laid to rest once the £1 million compensation package for both Hoddle and his assistant John Gorman was agreed last week but Lowe said: "We are seriously looking at making a complaint but I want to discuss it with the board first of all.

"We have to put together a timetable of events and the reasons why we think they have broken the code of conduct. We will take it from there."

Meanwhile, Spurs captain Sol Campbell, who fears he could be ruled out for the rest of Tottenham's season and England's next World Cup qualifier against Greece on 6 June, was having a further examination on his injured ankle today.

Hoddle said: "Sol has had X-rays and it doesn't look good. His availability for England will depend on how it settles down."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in