Agent says Hiddink is interested in England post

Dutchman Guus Hiddink would be interested in succeeding Sven-Goran Eriksson as England coach, his agent said yesterday.

Eriksson is to leave his post after this summer's World Cup finals and Hiddink, who is in charge of Dutch club PSV Eindhoven and the Australia national team, is one of the leading foreign managers being tipped to replace the Swede.

"There's been no contact but he would definitely be interested in hearing from the (English) FA," Hiddink's agent Cees van Nieuwenhuizen revealed. "The whole football environment in England, from a professional level, can be considered as the best in the world - maybe not the way they play football every now and then - but the exposure of English football all over the world is a big thing."

Van Nieuwenhuizen said former Netherlands and South Korea coach Hiddink would not be deterred by the media intrusion that Eriksson blamed for his departure two years before the end of his contract.

"He has been dealing with them (the media) when he was with Real Madrid and Valencia in Spain. He has been dealing with it when he was in Turkey with Fenerbahce.

"We don't live too far away from England so we follow the media in England and we know what's going on there, but that would definitely not be a reason for him to say 'no' beforehand."

Meanwhile, Michael Owen has appealed for Eriksson to be shown total support between now and the end of England's World Cup campaign in Germany, stressing to the English public that now is the time to get behind the team and management.

The 25-year-old England striker is concerned that further adverse publicity concerning the England manager during the final six months of his tenure could have a disastrous impact on the team's hopes of becoming world champions for the first time since 1966.

"It shouldn't affect us, but it'll affect us if we don't stop talking about it, and everyone just gets behind the team and everyone else for the World Cup," said Owen.

"We don't want to use that as an excuse if we don't do well, so we'd prefer to just concentrate on the football side."