Acting U.K. Football Association (FA) chairman Roger Burden will not seek permanent post over his country's failure to win the right to host the FIFA 2018 World Cup, BBC said.
Burden, 64, was appointed acting chairman this May. He said he lost confidence in the FIFA executive committee when his country's bid, seen as one of the favorites, was eliminated from the competition in the first round.
"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," the sports official said.
"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," he added.
"I recognize that an important part of the [FA chairman] role is liaison with FIFA," Burden said. "I'm not prepared to deal with people whom I cannot trust and I've withdrawn my candidacy".
British officials estimated that at least six of the 22 FIFA members would support the bid, but in the end it got just two votes, one of them from Englishman Geoff Thompson.
The official said he had "no issue with Russia's winning bid".
"I am sure they will put on a great World Cup and I have congratulated them," he said.
Burden does not rule out that the recent publications in British media, exposing corruption in FIFA, could have been the reason for failure.
"We have a free press in our country and we all have to live with adverse comment from time to time," he said.
Russia had won the bid to host the major event in the soccer world for the first time in history after a tight race against England, Portugal and Spain, and Belgium and the Netherlands.
Russia pledged to spend about $10 billion on the preparation for the World Cup and to ensure "the best conditions for players as well as for the spectators during the event". RIA Novosti
