But Sir Trevor Brooking is confident Capello will see out his contract as England manager even if Benitez is sacked by Inter Milan.
It appears only a matter of time before the former Liverpool coach is ousted as boss of last season's Italian Treble winners, even though he only replaced Jose Mourinho last summer.
It has been suggested the Football Association would not be too distraught at the thought of Capello leaving, given it would save them the estimated £6million annual salary it presently costs to keep Capello in charge of the Three Lions.
Brooking: "If you are in this role, you get speculation about that all the time.
"I don't know if anything has officially happened as far as Benitez is concerned but from our point of view, Fabio is contracted here until 2012.
"He is doing our qualifying campaign and hopefully we will have a chance to try and have a good tournament in 2012.
"Until we know otherwise, that is how we will go on."
There is now little appetite for another foreign appointment, so the chances are Capello will ultimately be replaced by an Englishman, or at the very least an adopted one, such as Martin O'Neill.
Harry Redknapp - who has been so successful with Tottenham in the Champions League this term - and Sam Allardyce - sacked as Blackburn manager eight days ago in mystifying circumstances - are obvious contenders, as is current Under-21 boss Stuart Pearce.
But Alan Shearer has only eight games experience as a manager - winning only one of those fixtures - and the FA would not consider him.
Posing the question: 'What next for Shearer'?
He can rule out the Newcastle job, he turned down Blackburn, Sheff Wed and Sheff Utd ... which makes us wonder if he as the appetite for the job of manager.