{"id":823290,"date":"2026-07-25T16:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823290\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T16:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:46:14","slug":"defoes-shock-woking-exit-came-after-growing-concerns-says-club-jermain-defoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823290\/","title":{"rendered":"Defoe\u2019s shock Woking exit came after \u2018growing concerns\u2019, says club | Jermain Defoe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jermain Defoe\u2019s departure from Woking came after \u201cgrowing concerns\u201d at the club with Jody Brown, the National League side\u2019s director of football, claiming the former Tottenham striker failed to turn up for training.<\/p>\n

Defoe\u2019s contract at the National League club was mutually terminated on Thursday after four months in charge<\/a>. In is first managerial job, the 43-year-old oversaw two wins and one defeat in six matches. The former England forward had said it was \u201cimpossible for me to continue\u201d and described his time at the club as an \u201ceye-opening\u201d experience.<\/p>\n

But the club responded strongly on Saturday. \u201cThe recommendation to appoint Jermain as manager was mine, and I take full responsibility for it,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAfter meeting with him on several occasions, I believed he was the right person to lead the club into an exciting new era.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he went on: \u201cHowever, in recent weeks there had been feedback from across the club, including players, staff and other departments, regarding growing concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo better understand the situation, I asked Jermain and Paul [Bracewell, the assistant manager] for a brief report outlining the squad\u2019s current depth, recruitment targets and any operational challenges, so we could provide the support required and accelerate preparations for the season. That report was requested on more than one occasion but was never received.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cA meeting was subsequently scheduled involving the directors, manager, assistant manager and head of operations to review preparations for the season. Neither Jermain nor his assistant attended that meeting or that day\u2019s training session. Throughout his tenure, Jermain had never communicated any serious concerns directly to me, so I am not going to speculate on his reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defoe has not publicly responded to Woking\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jermain Defoe\u2019s departure from Woking came after \u201cgrowing concerns\u201d at the club with Jody Brown, the National League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-823290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}