FA chairman Greg Dyke questions: Has Fifa ever awarded a World Cup without “a pile of bungs”?
FA chairman Greg Dyke fears no country has ever won the right to host the World Cup without "a pile of bungs", and has described Fifa as a "soap opera".
The former director general of the BBC was speaking following the resignation of German FA boss Wolfgang Niersbach over alleged corruption in the bid to secure the 2006 World Cup.
Germany saw off competition from South Africa and Morocco to host the 2006 World Cup, yet it has emerged that payments may have been made from its football association to Fifa in order to secure votes.
Dyke said:
It's like the Archers, it's like a soap opera, every week something is happening.
You begin to be convinced almost no World Cups have been allocated without a pile of bungs. But I was saddened what happened to Wolfgang, I like him, he was a good bloke.
I don't know the details of what happened. It does mean another member of the Uefa executive and the Fifa executive committee has had to resign.
Fifa was even pulled into the doping scandal currently engulfing athletics, after a report alleging systemic cheating in Russian athletics stated Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko – currently on Fifa's executive committee – must have been aware of what was going on.
Dyke commented: "Whether someone who is involved in all that can stay on the board of Fifa is something Fifa needs to address very quickly. There has to be a question mark."
The FA has written to Fifa to demand answers over Sepp Blatter's suggestion that the decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia was pre-arranged by Fifa heads before voting took place.
English football's governing body spent £21m on a bid to host the prestigious tournament but was trounced in the ballot – receiving just two votes to Russia's nine.