At a news conference this afternoon, Adam Crozier, the F.A.'s Chief Executive, said:

"Following Kevin Keegan's resignation on 7 October, the Football Association had three clear objectives:

  1. To implement a contingency plan for the match against Italy.
  2. That we would develop a team of the best young coaches in England to support the new head coach and that this would also build continuity for the future.
  3. That we would seek to employ one of the world's best coaches to lead the team forward in to the future.
As everyone is aware, Peter Taylor and Steve McClaren will take charge for the match against Italy and Brian Kidd will work with the U-21s. All three will, we hope, be part of the long term England set-up helping us to build for the future.

We are now delighted to announce that Sven Goran Eriksson, currently of Lazio, has agreed to become the new England coach.

He has agreed a five-year contract taking him through to the end of the World Cup in 2006 and giving England the continuity we seek as we move forward.

Sven was the unanimous choice of our selection team and is without doubt one of the best coaches in the world with an excellent record of sustained success.

At no stage did we approach any other manager; Sven was and is our No. 1 choice. His contract will begin on 1 July 2001 and we are hopeful that with the cooperation of Lazio he will also be available to manage the team for the World Cup qualifiers in March and June.

He is excited at the prospect of working with Peter Taylor, Steve McClaren and Brian Kidd and buys in 100% to our strategy of building for the long term and to have an English Manager in the long term.

At this point we would like to pay a special thank you to President Cragnotti of Lazio. He and everyone at the club, have done everything they possibly could to help us and we are extremely grateful for their support. Mr Cragnotti has shown the utmost integrity throughout our discussions and is a true man of football.

Sven will be in England for a press conference in the very near future to meet the media and I would ask you to respect his and Lazio's privacy until that point, as they have an important Serie A match tomorrow night.

Finally, we are delighted that in the space of three weeks we have put together a team of people which we believe has the best possible chance of making England successful in the future. It marks a new beginning for England and we are certain that everyone will give the new team their full support and best wishes."