England coach Fabio Capello to restrict visits from WAGS at next year’s World Cup

Capello to restrict World Cup visits from WAGS

LONDON — Fabio Capello is wagging a finger at the glamorous wives and girlfriends of English soccer players.

Wary of the distractions accompanying soccer players’ celebrity lifestyles, England’s coach will allow the so-called WAGS to visit the squad only on the days after games at next year’s World Cup.

Capello is set to take a tougher stance than his predecessors, seeking to avoid a repeat of what defender Rio Ferdinand called “a circus” during the 2006 tournament in Germany.

“I hope we will be there for a very long period but the players will have one day with their family, with the girls and with their friends,” Capello said. “It will be one day a week, after each game, and that is enough. That’s it. We are there to play football, not for a holiday.”

While international squads usually prepare in isolation for tournaments, with only infrequent and short visits by families, then England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson let players frequently leave their hotel in woodsy Buehlertal to visit their partners in the nearby spa town of Baden-Baden.

Several of the players conceded that the presence of the likes of Victoria Beckham and Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole, who is married to defender Ashley Cole, and the subsequent media attention had distracted the players at the World Cup.

With many journalists staying in a hotel near the one where the WAGS stayed, British newspapers gloried in tales including a $100,000-plus shopping spree in local fashion and jewelry stores and the dancing on the table of a bar while singing loudly.

England lost to Portugal on penalty kicks in the quarterfinal, and Capello will not tolerate a repeat.

“Absolutely not,” Capello said. “If they do not want to come for the day, then they should stay at home.”