Revealed: How Mary Earps has split the Lionesses dressing room with explosive attack on Hannah Hampton - and why even the England team-mates that support her won't speak up after 'golden rule' is broken

Mary Earps certainly has a knack for timing.

As a goalkeeper, you’d expect as much. She would hardly have become a European Championship winner, World Cup finalist and been crowned FIFA Best Goalkeeper without a finely-tuned ability to know when to jump.

And yet those powers seem to be on the wane.

In the last six months, the former No 1 announced her retirement from her country a mere five weeks before England were due to set out to defend their Euros title. And now, with many of her former coaches, team-mates and friends still in the midst of their professional football careers, she has decided to reveal all about the circumstances that led to her departure – without regard for the consequences for them.

The Lionesses are setting out on a new major tournament cycle with one eye on the Brazil World Cup in two years’ time, and they have spoken about building on the foundations of success that already exist.

But there is one individual threatening to undermine all that they have worked so hard to create – a sanctity of safety and trust, where the mantra voiced by many of the players down the years is ‘nothing comes in, nothing goes out’.

Earps isn’t wrong to suggest that Hampton can be a livewire. The 24-year-old is clearly another huge character (much like Earps) and her former manager at Aston Villa, Carla Ward, admitted as much, saying that her ‘emotions would take hold of her a lot’ when she was a youngster.

However, like Ward, Hampton’s new manager, Sonia Bompastor, has noticed her growth. The French coach praised her over the weekend as ‘such a professional athlete and also a good person’.

Moreover, during the summer’s Euros, there was a noticeable moment where, before the game against Wales, the goalkeeping trio of Hampton, Khiara Keating and Anna Moorhouse laughed their way through their warm-up, seemingly without a care in the world. It was hard to recall a similar moment when the goalkeeping unit looked as positive as it did this time around.

And when Keating started in her place against Brazil last weekend, the young Manchester City keeper went racing over to the injured Hampton to give her a huge hug before the game began. This was hardly a picture of disharmony.

The wave of public opinion is firmly against Earps after the release of excerpts from her new book All In: Football, Life and Learning to Be Unapologetically Me, serialised in The Guardian - and the media storm isn’t going to pass any time soon.

It’s rare for active players to air their dirty laundry while they and their team-mates are still in the game. It feels as though the one golden rule of the dressing room has been broken and the England players and coaches will now be left to clean up the mess. Or, more likely, navigate a precarious tightrope to avoid it.

Earps is set to return to England in just over a week’s time to face her former club Manchester United in a Champions League game, before Wiegman speaks to the press following her squad announcement – likely the following week – and the circus will inevitably follow. 

And it’s no surprise that not a single England player spoke on the matter after this weekend’s top-flight games. Insiders connected with the squad have told Daily Mail Sport that the players will be advised against talking about Earps, given the delicate nature of the situation.

While some of the players may sympathise with, or even support, Earps’ view that she was kept in the dark longer than necessary as Wiegman sought her replacement, why would anyone in the squad publicly side with her over their three-time Euros-winning manager? There’s nothing for them to gain - and everything to lose.

Privately, some will still be siding with Earps – and many did so at the beginning. This much is clear from the excerpts of her  book.

The whole saga leading up to Earps’ departure originates from what the 32-year-old describes as Hampton’s ‘bad behaviour’ during Euro 2022. Hampton had been dropped from the squad following the tournament, with Earps writing that the goalkeeper, who was 21 at the time, ‘had frequently risked derailing training sessions and team resources’.

The squad were split into groups and asked to reflect on what had gone well during that triumphant campaign. She writes: ‘The only negative that each group reported back on was that behaviour. It affected us all in a domino effect to an extent that was extremely unusual in a successful elite team environment.’

Wiegman insisted on bringing Hampton back into the squad, saying that she ‘deserves a second chance’, while it’s clear that Earps was not the only player in the dressing room harbouring these feelings.

And yet, it took over two years from when Hampton rejoined the squad, and until Earps lost the No 1 jersey to the youngster, before Earps handed in her notice to Wiegman.

Earps reveals that she felt she was being left in the dark about why she had fallen out of favour with the England boss and describes how her mental health ‘absolutely’ suffered during the months leading up to the Euros. She says she spent the Portugal camp in February 2025 in her ‘room alone crying’.

She also reveals she first told Wiegman about her desire to step away in April – but said she felt she was being ‘manipulated into staying’ before bringing the curtain down a month later.

Those who are sceptical may point out that she sat on these feelings for three years, and only when she lost the No 1 shirt did they prove too much for her. Others may look to how she handled being dropped by Phil Neville in 2020, and the subsequent toll that took on her mental health, and her desire to avoid that again. What people often forget is that both can be true at once.

When Earps first retired, the reaction from her team-mates was mixed. It’s understood that a few resented the unwanted distraction ahead of the tournament; many were too preoccupied with their own football and fitness journeys to pay too much attention to the situation, while some came out in support of her. Jess Carter was put in front of the media and praised her ‘bravery’, while captain Leah Williamson said she was ‘devastated’ about her departure.

Now, though, by releasing this book so soon after the events, the players have their hands tied with a place in the England squad at stake.

How can they be critical of the situation after Hampton was outstanding during the summer’s Euros - singlehandedly rescuing their tournament on multiple occasions - and with another major trophy in the cabinet? Isn’t that what this business is all about?

Daily Mail Sport revealed last week that Earps had declined an invitation to have a farewell tribute at Wembley due to scheduling conflicts.

It’s hard to imagine that going ahead now, given all that has happened.