Acting FA chairman Roger Burden has withdrawn his application for the permanent post following England’s disastrous World Cup bid.

Burden, who stepped into the role following Lord Triesman’s sacking earlier this year, stated that he would not be able to deal with FIFA following the way the voting went on the 2nd December.

He said: “I recognise that an important part of the role is liaison with Fifa, our global governing body. I’m not prepared to deal with people whom I cannot trust and I’ve withdrawn my candidacy. We have a free press in our country and we all have to live with adverse comment from time to time. But there is no doubt that English football benefits from the media coverage that it receives and would have been given great coverage if we had brought the World Cup to England.”

Following Russia’s triumph at the 2018 voting process, the head of the FA could not hide his amazement at how the England bid fared.

Burden added: “We were equal top of Fifa’s own technical assessment of the four bids. We were top of an independent assessment of the best commercial bids and our presentation on Thursday was widely acclaimed as the best of the 2018 and 2022 bids. Against this background, I am struggling to understand how we only achieved two votes. It is difficult to believe that the voting was an objective process. On top of that, Prince William, the Prime Minister and other members of our delegation were promised votes that did not materialise.”

Despite his reservations about working with Fifa, Burden urged the Football Association not to sever their ties with the sport’s world governing body.

“They are our governing body and it’s up to us to now to find ways of dealing with them and getting some sense into the organisation and I’ll certainly be looking to do that. Walking away from Fifa I don’t think is the answer, they are our governing body and we must look for ways of working with them.”