Craig Bellamy's Decision: Exploring Club Football with Burnley

Craig Bellamy was right to sit down with Burnley in the summer. That is the firm view of Football Association of Wales chief football officer David Adams, who insists the Wales manager did nothing wrong by exploring a return to club football.

Bellamy, whose FAW deal runs to the end of Euro 2028, has been open for years about wanting to manage a club side. When Burnley came calling after Scott Parker’s exit, the lure of Turf Moor – and a return to one of his former clubs – was always going to test his resolve.

He held talks. The story leaked. The noise grew.

In the end, Bellamy stayed put and later stressed the decision was his, that he chose Wales over Burnley. Adams has no issue with any of it.

“The way it played out was unfortunate, things get leaked these days,” Adams said on BBC’s Feast of Football podcast on BBC Sounds. “Naturally, the longer things go on, people start to make their own noise in some respects.

“Internally, Craig has always been very open and transparent about opportunities. We all know that Craig wants to eventually go and work in club football, he’s made that very clear across his time here.

“For him to go and speak to Burnley was the right thing to do, knowing that he does want to do that at some point.”

Adams had already built a relationship with Burnley chairman Alan Pace, having spoken to him regularly during the process that took Bellamy out of Lancashire and into the Wales job in 2024. So when the Clarets came back in the summer, the FAW did not try to block the conversation.

“We were happy for Craig to go and speak to them,” Adams said. “And then unfortunately, the way it played out was that they were saying he had accepted the job when he hadn’t.

“Craig was telling us the same thing as that and then one morning he rang and said ‘I’m staying’.

“Craig’s very transparent, we speak a lot, we get on well, so that’s how it landed really.”

Behind that calm exterior, the FAW were not blind to the risk. Losing a national team manager mid-cycle is always a live threat in international football, and Adams admits he cannot afford to be caught cold.

So while Bellamy remains in charge, succession planning is already under way.

“Behind the scenes in my job, I have to be alert to these things and I have to have a list of people in the background that I’d speak to if [Bellamy’s departure] ever materialised,” he said.

“We’ve got a profile of what we’re looking for, which we’ve been pretty successful in doing by selecting former international players into the role.

“That’s always our preference, to find someone who is connected to Wales, is passionate about Wales and has Wales in their heart.

“That’s been a really good profile of manager to look at in the last 10 years and we would try and stick to that profile ideally.”

A “game-changer” for women’s football in Wales

While the men’s side wrestles with the long-term future of its manager, Welsh football has been handed a huge boost on another front.

Cardiff’s Principality Stadium will host the women’s Champions League final in 2029. Adams does not play down what that means.

“It’s absolutely incredible, a game-changer for us,” he said.

Cardiff already knows what a major European showpiece looks like. Cardiff City Stadium staged the women’s Champions League final in 2017, the same year the men’s final came to the Principality Stadium – rebadged as the National Stadium of Wales for Uefa events because of sponsorship rules.

The landscape has shifted dramatically since then. Adams has seen it with his own eyes.

“When I first came into the job, we were getting maybe 1,000 people at Rodney Parade for women’s games,” he said. “We got 15,000 at Cardiff City Stadium in this last campaign, so you can see the growth and how quickly the game is moving.”

For him, the impact goes beyond one-off nights. Packed stands at Cardiff City Stadium and the sight of elite players at the Principality Stadium, he believes, change what young girls think is possible.

Adams says watching role models on those pitches is “just inspirational for those players.”

The national team is already breaking new ground. Under Rhian Wilkinson, Wales’ women qualified for a major tournament for the first time, reaching Euro 2025 in Switzerland. The next target is clear: a first World Cup.

They resume their 2027 World Cup qualifying campaign with a double header against Albania in October, knowing the margins at that level are brutal and the talent pool has to keep expanding.

Looking even further ahead, the 2035 women’s World Cup will come to the United Kingdom, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all due to host matches. Wales want to be more than just a host nation by then; they want to qualify on merit and compete.

That ambition demands more than a few big nights in Cardiff. It demands a system.

“Our goal is to create a pathway, which hasn’t been there for women’s football, where girls can actually play in a talent system which prepares them to play in tournament football on a consistent basis,” Adams said.

“I don’t think we’re there yet, personally. I think what we’ve done in the last three years is fantastic, with the girls’ regional programme.

“But now we’ve got to try and make sure the girls graduate out of that system and play in the top leagues across Europe.

“That’s what gives you the best chance of qualifying consistently for major tournaments.”

From Bellamy’s club ambitions to the women’s game chasing World Cups and Champions League finals, Welsh football is juggling the present with a restless, demanding future. The question now is whether the structures can grow quickly enough to match the scale of its new stage.