Simon Jordan has warned Burnley boss Vincent Kompany about taking the Belgium national team job after Roberto Martinez left his role.
The 49-year-old Spaniard said he will not be extending his contract, which expires at the end of Qatar 2022, after Belgium failed to get out of their group at the World Cup.
Martinez, who led Belgium to a third-placed finish at Russia 2018 after taking on the role in 2016, was asked if the hugs he gave his players after being held by Croatia in their final match were “goodbye hugs”.
“Yes, that was my last game with the national team,” the former Everton boss said. “This is emotional, as you can imagine. I can’t carry on (answering), sorry.”
It has been reported that Kompany, who took over at Burnley in the summer, is one of the managers considered to be in the running to replace Martinez.
However, Jordan doubts Kompany would leave Turf Moor so soon after joining with the Clarets currently top of the Championship table.
Jordan told talkSPORT: “He’s a leader and I think leaders have more substance than followers. So he doesn’t strike me as someone that would jump into a job and then jump out of it when he felt something immediately better came along.
“He stayed at Anderlecht for three years, I think he did a job, you [co-host Jim White] questioned if he did a good job at Anderlecht.
“He’s at Burnley doing a good job at getting them together and changing the brand of football they play alongside potentially getting them out of this division at the first knockings.”
There were rumours of unrest in the Belgium camp during the World Cup and, with their ‘golden generation’ on their way out, Jordan has questioned whether it would be an attractive proposition.
“The Belgium job could be a poisoned chalice, because what’s coming behind this so-called ‘golden generation’?” Jordan asked.
Before adding: “He’s at a stage where he’s developing his managerial career, he’s still very young in managerial terms.
“He’s got an opportunity to manage in the Premier League rather than do a part-time job as an international manager in a national that’s underachieved in the last six years with its best generation of footballers.
“I think it’s degrees of loss, potentially leaving a decent Premier League job, potentially if he gets Burnley there, to earn a job at a stage of his career when it’s perhaps for a slightly older manager at a different time in their career.
“That’s not suggesting Roberto Martinez was particularly old when he took the job because he wasn’t.”
READ MORE: Too old, too sluggish and too much Lukaku; Belgium deserve their early exit
