Craig Bellamy's Decision: A Step Towards Club Football

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 until after Euro 2028, has never hidden his ambition. He wants the week-to-week intensity of the club game again. When Burnley, a club where he had already worked on the coaching staff, came calling after Scott Parker’s exit, he listened.

Talks were held. Noise exploded.

Reports suggested he had accepted the job at Turf Moor. Bellamy stayed put.

From Adams’ perspective, the process was messy, but the principle was sound.

“The way it played out was unfortunate, things get leaked these days,” Adams told the BBC’s Feast of Football podcast. “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 line of communication with Burnley chairman Alan Pace, first during Bellamy’s departure from the Lancashire club in 2024 to take the Wales job, and then again when the Clarets came back for their former coach in the summer.

“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 the scenes, though, the FAW cannot afford to be caught cold. Bellamy’s long-stated desire to manage a club means succession planning is not a theoretical exercise, it is part of Adams’ daily brief.

“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.”

While the men’s national team wrestles with the long-term question of who leads it, the women’s game in Wales is charging into a new era.

Adams called the decision to award the 2029 women’s Champions League final to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium a “game-changer” for the country. It will be the second time Wales has staged the showpiece after Cardiff City Stadium hosted the final in 2017, the same year the men’s Champions League final was played at the Principality Stadium, branded as the National Stadium of Wales for Uefa events.

“It's absolutely incredible, a game-changer for us,” Adams said. “You've seen the growth in the women's game. When I first came into the job, we were getting maybe 1,000 people at Rodney Parade for women's games.

“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.”

Crowds tell part of the story. Role models tell the rest.

Adams believes young girls watching elite players step out at Cardiff City Stadium and Principality Stadium will feel a jolt of possibility.

He calls it “just inspirational for those players”.

On the pitch, Wales’ women have finally smashed through a ceiling. Under Rhian Wilkinson they reached Euro 2025 in Switzerland, the first time the side has ever qualified for a major tournament.

Now the target has shifted. A World Cup debut is the next step.

Wales continue their 2027 World Cup qualifying campaign with a double header against Albania in October, knowing that every window, every camp, is part of a longer build towards the 2035 women’s World Cup. That tournament will be staged across the United Kingdom, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all hosting games.

The FAW wants Wales not just to be there, but to compete.

That ambition drags the conversation back to structure and depth. Progress has been striking, but Adams is blunt: there is still a long way to go.

“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,” he 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 weighing up his next move to a generation of young players dreaming of Champions League nights in Cardiff, Wales sits at a crossroads. The question now is whether the structures being built can keep pace with the ambition that is already burning.