David Dein, the International President of England's 2018 World Cup bid, was left dumb-founded after FIFA awarded the competition to Russia.

The former FA and Arsenal vice-chairman claims that the bid was not helped by “elements” in the country who were thought to be against the football governing body.

It is believed that he was referring to the BBC's Panorama programme on Monday, which alleged members of FIFA are corrupt.

Although refusing to name which elements he felt had hampered England's hopes, Dein said: Everybody really gave it our best shot. We had a great technical bid and the presentation was really compelling.

"It was always going to be difficult and it wasn't made any easier by certain elements. I'm not going to go into that now. But when you want the whole country to be behind you, occasionally you get aspects of it which don't go according to plan.

“You don't know how that affects things when you are trying to win votes.

Dein added: "When the technical study and the economic reports came out, we were one of the best — if not the best and I think you'll agree that the presentation today was top class, so that makes it all the more disappointing that we didn't do better.

"Before it comes back to Europe it will probably be 2030, we were really trying so hard to get it to come to England in 2018.

"I'm not sure how it worked, all I can say is sometimes in life as we've seen in so many football matches in our time the best team doesn't necessarily win."