Gareth Southgate reluctant to select Hudson-Odoi despite possibility of losing him to Ghana

The teenager has already featured three times for the Three Lions but is still eligible to play for Ghana, the country of his parents.

This follows a change to FIFA's eligibility rules, which allows him to switch nationality to Ghana in 2022.

However, Hudson-Odoi will not be able to play for the Black Stars if he’s capped one more time by England.

According to a report by the Daily Mail, Southgate is aware of this but is reluctant to hand the winger a call-up for the sake of it.

The England boss believes every player must earn their call-up and is not ready to make an exception for Hudson-Odoi.

“I'm trying to respect a squad that got us to a final [of Euro 2020], not make too many changes to that, and make sure young players really have to earn their right to come in,” Southgate recently said.

Meanwhile, the report also suggests there is a sense inside the FA that Hudson-Odoi's alignment with Ghana is, perhaps, a means to call England's bluff.

The highly-rated winger has not played for England since 2019 and recently turned down two invites to play for the country’s U21s.

Hudson-Odoi arrived in Ghana earlier in June and spent a week fraternising with the locals and meeting some key people.

The winger has Ghanaian parents and his father, Bismark Odoi, played for Ghana Premier League giants Hearts of Oak in the 90s before relocating to England.

He paid a courtesy call on President Nana Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House, where the possibility of a nationality switch was discussed.

He also met with Sports Minister, Mustapha Ussif, and the President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kurt Okraku, to discuss a possible nationality switch.