Why ‘baffling’ comments from Mary Earps on Sarina Wiegman, Hannah Hampton won't impact England legacy - Fara Williams column

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In her latest exclusive column for TNT Sports, England legend Fara Williams gives her thoughts about an excerpt from Mary Earps’ upcoming autobiography. She explains why she is disappointed in the former England goalkeeper for criticising Sarina Wiegman and Hannah Hampton publicly, but details why the backlash from the book will not tarnish Earps' legacy with The Lionesses.

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Former England international Fara Williams will be providing exclusive insight and analysis for TNT Sports for the 2025/26 campaign. In her latest column, she goes into detail about the excerpt from Mary Earps’ book in which the former England goalkeeper opens up about her international retirement, and claims that Hannah Hampton was rewarded for bad behaviour by Sarina Wiegman ahead of the Euros triumph in the summer. Watch the women's and men's FA Cup, Premier League and UEFA Champions League live on TNT Sports and discovery+.

Earps needs to be clearer about 'bad behaviour'

The biggest talking point over the weekend was the excerpt from Mary Earps’ upcoming autobiography where she claimed that Sarina Wiegman was rewarding "bad behaviour" by bringing Hannah Hampton back into the England squad.

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I’ve been asked previously to write books or be involved in documentaries about my career and life, and normally, they are looking for a headline which will be key to selling the book.

Mary's comments on Hannah and Sarina have become the headline, and she must’ve been aware of the consequences of writing something like this in her book.

Regarding the comments on Hannah’s bad behaviour, I can only assume there might be some truth to that because we know that she missed three camps following England’s triumph at the Euros in 2022.

However, if Mary is going to be open and honest about the situation, she needs to go into more detail about the supposed bad behaviour rather than leave it up in the air.

I personally don’t know if there was bad behaviour from Hannah, but even if that was the case, she served her punishment after being left out of the squad.

If you look at Hannah’s career from that moment onwards, I feel she has shown great growth, reflection and development to bounce back.

As a young goalkeeper, she sealed a massive move to Chelsea, became England’s No. 1 and played a key role in helping them win the tournament in the summer, and picked up the award as the world’s best goalkeeper at the Ballon d'Or ceremony.

If there was any doubt about Hannah’s behaviour in the past, it is clear from her actions that she has learnt from that experience and that is a good sign for someone who is still young.

I remember when I was selected for England during my playing career, I was young and emotionally immature, and I was pulled up by national team manager Hope Powell at the time.

She told me that if you continue like this, you’re not going to play for England again, and it takes those harder conversations for you to look at yourself, reflect and think about what I want from my career.

Mary Earps and Hannah Hampton at the 2023 World Cup with England.

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Those conversations with Hope allowed me to grow and, on the surface, it appears that Hannah has learnt from her own experiences.

I honestly didn’t like Mary’s comments about Hannah. It's quite baffling to see Mary come out publicly and talk about a former international team-mate in this way.

Looking back at the way her retirement played out, I was expecting something to come out eventually.

It was bound to happen when you consider a player as popular as Mary to retire on the eve of a major tournament, although I couldn’t have predicted Mary to talk about Hannah in the way she did, because you need to respect your team-mates whether you like them or not.

The extract from the book has confirmed my initial thoughts because she described that an uncomfortable environment in camp led to her decision.

Mary’s retirement was the biggest shock before the tournament and the toughest one to take, and I just feel sorry for Hannah.

This poor kid goes into the Euros and she was absolutely hated by England fans because they felt that she was the reason for Mary missing out.

You don’t wish that on any of your team-mates and what she had to go through and how she had to get the supporters back on side was incredible.

Wiegman showed Earps a lot of respect

Regarding her comments about Sarina, the fact that the England boss sat her down to explain the reasons why she was bringing Hannah back shows the respect she has for Mary.

I was in the England set-up for around 19 years and not once did a manager tell me that they were thinking about bringing a player back into the fold – it just doesn’t happen.

Sarina is a three-time back-to-back-to-back Euros winner and reached the World Cup finals for the last two tournaments – how can you as a player question her decision-making given her achievements?

Mary also revealed that she was unhappy after Sarina didn’t watch one of her games for Paris Saint-Germain.

Unfortunately for her, the French league isn’t as televised as the WSL, so if she wanted Sarina to get a closer look at her performances, maybe it would’ve been better for her to stay in the country.

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People make decisions for different reasons and Mary might have wanted the move for a new challenge, but she would’ve known that leaving the country would mean fewer eyes on her games.

But England scouts and the FA make sure they have footage of every player available to play for England regardless of where they’re playing, so I’m certain that Sarina, the scouts and coaching staff would not have missed a single game of hers.

If we’re honest about who was the best England goalkeeper leading up to the tournament, it was Hannah Hampton.

She was selected as England’s No. 1 because she was the goalkeeper with the best form, and maybe she was the best in the world at the time.

She wasn’t rewarded for her bad behaviour, she was rewarded for performance. I feel that her comments about Sarina showed a lack of respect, given that Sarina showed her respect by taking the time to explain the reasons for Hannah’s re-introduction to the squad.

Earps legacy can never be tarnished

I think people will look at Mary a bit differently now, but I don’t think the fallout from her book will tarnish her legacy with The Lionesses.

She will always be in the history books after becoming the first goalkeeper to win the Euros with England, making that memorable penalty save in the World Cup final, fighting for young girls to buy goalkeeping shirts, and making goalkeeping fun and popular for the next generation.

However, she will have to deal with the backlash because she decided to put these comments out in public, so there are going to be opinions.

It’s time for Mary to own what she wrote in the book because if she tries to backtrack from them, that’s not a good look.

Mary is a very smart person and, for whatever reason, she must’ve known that her quotes on Hannah and Sarina would make the headlines.

I’m sure the book contains more details about her journey in football and the difficulties that she had to overcome to become England No. 1, but those comments about her former national team manager and international team-mate have become the biggest story.

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