England coach Roy Hodgson admits its a battle keeping his team relevant amid the hype of the Premier League.

Hodgson was speaking at a question-and-answer session with Club Wembley members.

He said: "It would be lovely to think one day we could all get together and say 'England is important'.

"You hear people trying to say it's only the Premier League that counts and the Champions League, and people don't care about international football - something like 24 or 25 million watched our [Euro 2012] game against Italy. If you want to see the English desire to see a national team do well, you only have to go to the Olympics. It's Great Britain but you had 20,000 turning up to watch a handball game - let alone beach volleyball.

"It would be nice if, when we're playing on Friday, the top teams played on Saturday and not Sunday. Then on Monday we could do a bit of work and on Tuesday do some serious work.

"But every time, the top clubs have played on Sunday and some at 5pm on Sunday. If they're from Manchester and they've played in Southampton, they get back late at night then have to come down again."