Craig Bellamy's Burnley Snub Leaves Wales in Turmoil
Craig Bellamy wanted Burnley. That much is clear. Now he’s still Wales manager – and, according to one of his former team-mates, he’s done serious damage on the way back.
Iwan Roberts, who shared a dressing room with Bellamy for Wales and Norwich City, did not bother dressing it up. In his view, Bellamy’s flirtation with a return to Turf Moor has left scars.
“He’s lost a lot of love and faith among the fans and I would think he’s burnt a lot of bridges,” Roberts said, summing up a mood that has been growing ever since talks with Burnley became public – and then collapsed.
A Move That Never Was
Bellamy, 46, held discussions with Burnley about succeeding Scott Parker, who was sacked in April. The club know him well: he served as Vincent Kompany’s assistant from 2022 to 2024 and even had a short spell as caretaker boss. The fit looked natural. Too natural, perhaps, for Welsh supporters already on edge after missing out on the World Cup.
The Lancashire side approached the Football Association of Wales with a view to prising their head coach away. The deal is now off. The breakdown is not believed to have hinged on compensation to the FAW, but negotiations over Bellamy’s backroom staff joining him at Turf Moor were understood to be a sticking point.
So Bellamy stays. On paper, nothing changes. His contract as Wales boss, signed in 2024, runs through to 2028. He has spoken publicly of his dream to lead his country into Euro 2028 on home soil, with the tournament staged across England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
But the landscape around him has shifted.
Trust Eroded
Roberts believes the damage is not contractual. It is emotional.
“The Association and Noel Mooney know that Bellamy is looking at other jobs and has had his head turned by the links to Burnley,” he told S4C’s Newyddion. “The big question now is whether they keep him on as national team manager.”
That question cuts to the heart of the matter. The FAW backed Bellamy as the man to carry a new generation beyond the Gareth Bale era. He, in turn, called it “the best job in the world” and spoke passionately about building towards the next Euros.
Now the players, Roberts suggests, know exactly where he would have gone if the chance had been there.
“The players will know that if he’d had the chance he would have left and gone to Burnley,” Roberts said. “That after saying this was the best job in the world and how much he was looking forward to leading Wales into the next Euros.”
It leaves an awkward triangle: Bellamy, the FAW and a fanbase already bruised by recent setbacks. The governing body must decide whether the man they entrusted with a long-term project is still the right figurehead when his commitment has been so publicly tested.
“The next few days are going to be quite interesting I would imagine,” Roberts added, with deliberate understatement.
Bale, Allen and a Divided Reaction
Not everyone wants the story to end with Bellamy walking away. Gareth Bale has already made clear it would be a major blow for Wales to lose him. Another former Wales striker, Malcolm Allen, echoed that sentiment on BBC Radio Cymru, welcoming the fact that, for now at least, the head coach remains in place with the European Championship two years away.
Allen understands the lure. Burnley would have given Bellamy the daily intensity of club management, the training-ground rhythm and week-to-week control that international football simply cannot match. For a driven coach in his mid-40s, that pull is powerful.
But Allen did not pretend the outcome leaves anyone comfortable.
He called it an “uncomfortable” situation – and then went straight to the crux of Bellamy’s problem: the reaction when he walks back into Wales duty.
“The problem, when he comes back with his tail between his legs because he hasn’t got the job with Burnley, is how Wales fans will respond to this,” Allen said.
Some supporters were already frustrated after the World Cup failure. For that group, this saga will feel like confirmation of their doubts.
“There will be some who were frustrated after we failed to reach the World Cup thinking ‘how can we allow him back?’,” Allen warned.
A Manager Who Must Now Win Everything Back
The FAW’s position only complicates the picture. Missing out on the World Cup has hit the association financially, limiting their room for manoeuvre. Paying off a coach tied down until 2028 is not a straightforward option.
“The situation financially is that the FAW don’t have a lot of money at the moment after we missed out on the World Cup,” Allen said.
So Bellamy is likely to stay, at least in the short term. But he stays under scrutiny, his words about the “best job in the world” now held up against the reality of his attempted exit.
For all the talk, there is only one route back for him. Allen spelled it out with the blunt clarity of a former striker.
“So he will have to win those fans over and the only way to do that will be to win games.”
The bridges may be burnt, as Roberts suggests. The question now is whether results – and results alone – can build new ones before Euro 2028 comes into view.
