England 2018 bid chief executive Andy Anson has warned the nation that there is no point in England bidding for any future tournaments unless FIFA undergoes a radical voting reform.

Anson, who witnessed England receive a paltry two votes in Zurich yesterday, stated that a regime with 22 members was far too unreliable.

He said: “I would say right now don’t bother bidding unless you know the process is going to change. When there are only 22 guys that gives them too much influence. I still find it hard to understand what happened.”

It has been revealed since the result that at least five FIFA members initially promised to back England’s bid according to a senior government source. The source states that FIFA vice president Jack Warner and general secretary Chuck Blazer were among those who had given their assurances.

Anson added: “When you have the best technical bid, fantastic inspection visits, the best economic report, and, from what people told us, the best presentation, it’s quite hard to stomach that all that seemed to count for absolutely nothing. I’m not going to beat around the bush – individual members promised to vote for us and didn’t clearly. They are saying to us that our media killed us but I don’t believe that for one minute, but that’s what we are being told. Russia did a lot of last-minute lobbying and votes appeared to switch at the last minute – we know some switched in the early hours of the morning.”

Aside from the shock of England’s bid failing, the Australian bid managed to do even worse despite receiving an excellent technical report. The 2022 hopefuls only managed one vote in the first round despite being one of the favourites to earn the bid, like England.

Ron Walker, AFF member, said: “There has been some contamination of the voting system in Fifa in the last 12 months. There’s been a lot of publicity about the way the voting system works and I believe it’s time it’s changed, otherwise you won’t get countries like Australia, England and the US bidding because they know very well the voting system is flawed.”