Woking Hit Back at Jermain Defoe Over Shock Exit, Claim He Missed Meeting

Woking’s director of football Jody Brown has hit back at Jermain Defoe, claiming the former England and Tottenham striker did not turn up for a meeting and training session amid what he called “growing concerns” within the club before Defoe’s exit as head coach after just four months.

Defoe had his contract at the National League side mutually terminated on Thursday, having only begun his first managerial role in March. He won two, drew three and lost one of his six matches in charge. The 43-year-old said the circumstances had made it “impossible for me to continue” and described the job as an “eye-opening” experience.

But in an extraordinary statement on Saturday morning, Brown pushed back hard against the version of events Defoe had presented a day earlier, saying “success as a player does not always translate into management and leadership” and revealing there had been “growing concerns” within the club over pre-season.

Brown’s Statement

Brown said he was the one who brought Defoe to the club in the first place, and he took ownership of that decision even as he criticised how it ended.

“The recommendation to appoint Jermain as manager was mine, and I take full responsibility for it,” Brown said. “After meeting with him on several occasions, I believed he was the right person to lead the club into an exciting new era.

“As we have seen many times before, success as a player does not always translate into management and leadership. I sincerely hope to see him succeed in whichever direction he follows.”

Brown then went further, revealing what he described as a contributing factor to the sudden departure. He said Defoe’s public and private messaging about the job had always sounded positive, which was part of what made the exit so jarring to people inside the club.

“Jermain’s feedback was always positive, and he regularly expressed his enthusiasm and excitement for the season, both publicly and privately. I can therefore appreciate the surprise and subsequent speculation surrounding his sudden departure,” Brown said.

“However, in recent weeks there had been feedback from across the club, including players, staff and other departments, regarding growing concerns. To better understand the situation, I asked Jermain and Paul (Bracewell, assistant) for a brief report outlining the squad’s current depth, recruitment targets and any operational challenges, so we could provide the support required and accelerate preparations for the season. That report was requested on more than one occasion but was never received.

“A meeting was subsequently scheduled involving the directors, manager, assistant manager and head of operations to review preparations for the season. Neither Jermain nor his assistant attended.”

Brown’s most pointed remark came when he addressed the idea that every job in football involves some level of complaint or friction, and drew a clear line between that and what he said actually happened.

“Every football club faces challenges. Players want more game time, improved contracts or transfers. The media team might want better equipment, the medical department more interns, the strength and conditioning staff larger gym space, and the car park attendants may want more coffee,” Brown said. “But people do not just fail to turn up.”

Sky Sports News has contacted Defoe for comment.

Defoe’s Version

Defoe had revealed his decision to leave Woking a day earlier in a post on Instagram, describing the parting as mutual and pointing to what had been built in his short time in charge.

“Following recent discussions, I can confirm that I have mutually agreed to leave my position as manager of Woking FC,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, circumstances have ultimately made it impossible for me to continue in the position.

“I am extremely proud of the work undertaken during my time at the club and genuinely felt that we were building something special.

“I would like to thank Todd Johnson for giving me the opportunity to manage the club. I am incredibly grateful to the supporters and, most importantly, the players, who I am genuinely gutted for. The group is a fantastic one, and I wish the squad every success for the season ahead.

“I’m really disappointed the journey has ended so soon, but I leave with great pride in what Paul Bracewell, Karl Halabi and I were building at the club.

“My time at Woking FC has been an eye-opening managerial experience and one that will undoubtedly make me stronger for the next challenge in my career.”

A Difficult First Job

Defoe had waited patiently for his first managerial role after coaching jobs at Rangers and Tottenham, taking it at a level far below where he spent his own playing career. He scored 305 goals in 762 appearances across a playing career that included spells at West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Toronto FC, Sunderland and Bournemouth, and won 57 caps for England, but management at National League level presented a completely different set of problems to anything he had faced as a player or as an assistant coach at Premier League clubs.

Defoe retired as a player in March 2022, having spent his final months as a player-coach at Rangers, where he briefly formed part of a four-man caretaker team after Steven Gerrard left for Aston Villa in November 2021. He then returned to Tottenham, working with the club’s under-17 and under-21 squads for two years while completing his coaching badges and earning his UEFA A Licence. He left Spurs in the summer of 2024 to pursue a full-time managerial role, and the Woking job in March marked the first permanent post of his coaching career.

The Woking job was never going to be easy. The club does not carry a budget to match some of its National League rivals, and does not have the infrastructure that comes with being part of the EFL system. Defoe knew the risks going in.

“If you speak to any manager, regardless of the league and the standard, it’s always going to be a gamble,” he said at his unveiling in March.

At that same unveiling, Defoe addressed Woking’s long wait to reach the Football League. “People talk about it being impossible,” he said. “That means nothing. I truly believe that we can do something special. When you become a manager and a coach, you want that sort of challenge. You want to get up in the morning and have a goal to strive to.”

His final game in charge came on Tuesday, a 1-0 pre-season defeat to Braintree Town, and Defoe was upbeat afterwards about the standards he was trying to set. “We’re trying to create that elite mentality,” he said. “Even in the in-house game the other day, there were a few players that were disappointed that they lost against their friends. I stand back and look at it and think that’s what you want. You want those sort of demands. It doesn’t matter who we play against. We believe that we’re good enough to win every game. You have to think like that.”

Woking parted ways with Defoe after only six matches in charge, a small sample size for any manager to be judged on, but Brown’s statement makes clear the decision was not built around results on the pitch. Instead, it centres on the operational side of the job, the reporting Brown said he asked for and did not receive, and the meeting Brown said Defoe and his assistant did not attend.

What Happens Next

Woking now need a fourth appointment to the dugout after Neal Ardley and assistant Simon Bassey were sacked in March, following an FA Trophy quarter-final exit with the club sitting 17th in the National League. Craig Ross, Jake Hyde and Dale Gorman took interim charge before Defoe was appointed, and the club must now go through another search before the season starts in August, with a narrow window to appoint a replacement and settle any unease inside the building before competitive matches begin.

Woking play in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, at the Laithwaite Community Stadium in Surrey, a ground with a capacity of just over 6,000. The club has won the FA Trophy three times, a joint record shared with Scarborough and Telford United, and appointing a manager with Defoe’s playing profile was seen as a marker of the club’s ambition when it was announced in March. That is part of why the split, coming barely four months later and only weeks before a new season, has generated so much attention outside the level Woking normally operate at.

Sky Sports’ David Richardson wrote that Defoe’s shock departure, coming two weeks before the new season and alongside a public falling-out with the club, will likely damage his future prospects in the game. Other clubs, Richardson suggested, will likely be wary of taking a risk on an unproven manager whose professionalism was called into question in his first role. In that assessment, Defoe is back to square one, with a reputation to rebuild before his next opportunity in coaching arrives.

For Defoe, the exit closes a brief and difficult first chapter in club management. He built his reputation as one of England’s most reliable goalscorers of his generation, and how he responds to this setback, whether he steps back into coaching at a similar level or waits for a different kind of opportunity, will shape how this spell at Woking is remembered inside the game.