12 Jul 2011

Johnson to decide his own future after Cup

12:57 pm on 12 July 2011

England's manager Martin Johnson has effectively been given the green light to decide his own future after the World Cup, as an extraordinary administrative crisis engulfs Twickenham.

After its botched plan to hire a performance director the Rugby Football Union has no permanent chairman or chief executive just nine weeks before the World Cup starts.

Johnson, who captained the 2003 World Cup-winning team in Sydney, has said he finds being England manager "very addictive".

His contract expires in December and if he wants to stay on it is by no means certain with whom he would have contract talks, although Martyn Thomas, who quit as RFU chairman on Sunday, has said he would fill in if required.

And Thomas says Johnson's such an honest assessor of his own performance that he will judge himself after the World Cup.