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England Stars Were Left Exposed After Sponsor 'Leaked' Sensitive Details

Home> Football> England

Published 16:37 9 Sep 2025 GMT+1

England Stars Were Left Exposed After Sponsor 'Leaked' Sensitive Details

England players were on the receiving end of a major security breach which was caused by the posting of an official teamsheet.

Josh Lawless

Josh Lawless

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Featured Image Credit: Getty

Topics: England

Josh Lawless
Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and WWE. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has covered two WrestleMania events for SPORTbible.

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England's starting XI for games is often shared ahead of time but back in 2014 there was a leak which was much more dangerous.

In June 2014, ahead of the World Cup in Brazil, England played Ecuador in a warm-up fixture at the Sun Life Stadium.

The game was a 2-2 draw, with Wayne Rooney and Rickie Lambert both on target as Raheem Sterling and Antonio Valencia were sent off late on.

But there was controversy prior to the match as England players had sensitive information shared with the entire world.

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An hour before, teamsheets were handed out to members of the media in the press box as is standard practice.

However, these teamsheets also included every player's date of birth and passport numbers for the 18 seleced - as well as the signatures of Frank Lampard and Michelle Farrar, the director of England team operations.

It was also the case with Ecuador squad selected for the game.

England's teamsheet contained passport numbers. Image: X/@StanCollymore
England's teamsheet contained passport numbers. Image: X/@StanCollymore

Car manufacturer Vauxhall, a corporate sponsor of England's, accidentally posted a picture of the teamsheet on social media with all the details visible.

They deleted it fairly swiftly but it was too late as the image had widely circulated around the internet for all to see.

The sponsor issued an apology, stating: "We realised we made a mistake immediately and the tweet was deleted from our account within a minute. We have apologised to the FA for any embarrassment caused."

FA issue statement on England security breach

Meanwhile, the Football Association also issued a statement to media - confirming that they were not responsible for the error as they pointed the blame elsewhere.

The FA said: "It is a matter for the match organisers, the publication and distribution of the team sheets are their responsibility."

England legend and World Cup Golden Boot winner Gary Lineker saw the funny side, taking to X, formerly known as Twitter to write: "England have never lost a World Cup in which the players' passport numbers were on a pre tournament friendly team-sheet."

Lineker's joke ultimately didn't come true though as England failed to get out of the World Cup group stages and didn't even pick up a victory against Italy, Uruguay or Costa Rica.

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