England’s Football Association Chairman quits over 2018 World Cup bid row

LONDON - The acting Football Association (FA) Chairman Roger Burden has said that he will quit as he no longer trusts FIFA members after the failure of England’s 2018 World Cup bid.

Burden said that he was not prepared to deal with people who were “not men of their word”.

“When we finished up with just one vote on top of our own - I find that very difficult to understand. Prince William was promised a number of votes and only one of those materialized, that is a disgrace,” Sky Sports quoted Burden, as saying.

“I feel there are members of the FIFA Executive Committee, which is our governing body, who cannot be trusted - they are not men of their word and that’s why I’m not prepared to deal with them,” he added.

Burden, who was appointed in May, had applied for the position of permanent FA Chairman, but has now withdrawn from the race.

He will continue as acting chairman for the time being until a successor is appointed.

England’s bid, which was called “excellent and remarkable” by FIFA President Sepp Blatter, was dumped out of the running in the first round of the vote, which was held in the international governing body’s headquarters in Zurich.

Russia was eventually named as hosts, beating Spain-Portugal and the Netherlands-Belgium.

According to reports, one of England’s votes came from their own executive committee member Geoff Thompson.

Thompson and the England 2018 bid team believe that African football president Issa Hayatou was their only foreign backer. (ANI)