DOHA, Qatar — Gareth Southgate has insisted Ben White left the England camp for personal reasons and played down suggestions of a bust-up between the Arsenal defender and his assistant coach Steve Holland.
The Football Association released a statement on Nov. 30 revealing that the 25-year-old was departing Qatar with an accompanying request to respect the player’s privacy. Arsenal added in their own club statement that “we’re all with you, Ben.”
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However, a report emerged on Friday suggesting White had been involved in a disagreement with Holland at a team meeting over a failure to recall data relating to his personal statistics.
Asked by ESPN about the validity of those claims, Southgate told a news conference on Friday: “As far as I am aware, the article that was written used words like ‘alleged’ and so whoever wrote it didn’t feel strongly enough that it was correct.
“Ben left for personal reasons. We made that very clear and I think especially in this day and age it is very important that a situation like that is respected.”
