Alan Shearer has ruled himself out of the running to return to Ewood Park and succeed Mark Hughes as manager of Blackburn Rovers. Shearer was asked by John Williams, the Blackburn chairman, whether he would like to be considered for the job, but the former England striker, 37, rejected the chance because he was unwilling to sacrifice his extensive media commitments. Shearer's contract as a studio analyst for the BBC runs until the end of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

“The situation was, and is, that I was very flattered to have got a call from the chairman,” Shearer said during the BBC's coverage of the Euro 2008 match between Switzerland and Turkey last night. “He asked me if I would like to be included on a shortlist for the manager's job, which I politely declined because of a lot of commitments I have, namely this one.

“I was very flattered to be asked and thanked him for that. He has made two great decisions on his last two appointments [Graeme Souness and Hughes] and I'm sure he will make it a third one. So I wished him good luck. It's not the right time.”

Shearer's apparent reluctance to try his hand at management at this time must be weighed against the fact that he was disappointed to be overlooked for the job at Newcastle United, another former club, in January in the wake of Sam Allardyce's departure.

Shearer is known to be keen to return to football at some point and while his announcement last night cast further doubt on when that might be, his decision to pull out of the running will also come as a blow to Blackburn supporters, who had made clear their desire to see their former hero succeed Hughes.

Not that the other candidates will mind. With Shearer out of the picture, the situation becomes more open, with Allardyce's odds of a third stint as a Barclays Premier League manager shortening with the bookmakers last night.

Sources close to Allardyce, who will return this afternoon from Doha, in Qatar, where he has been working as a Euro 2008 pundit for a Middle East television station, have made it clear that he wants the job.

The former Bolton Wanderers and Newcastle manager is expected to be interviewed next week as the recruitment drive hots up, although the claims of other candidates such as Paul Ince, the Milton Keynes Dons manager, Dick Advocaat, the Zenit St Petersburg coach, Steve McClaren, the former England head coach, and Henning Berg, the Lyn Oslo coach and former Blackburn defender, cannot be discounted.

Allardyce would want assurances that Blackburn's most prized assets, David Bentley and Roque Santa Cruz, will not be sold, although Williams sought to clarify the situation yesterday by insisting that “we don't have to sell our players”.