ENGLAND’S bid for the 2006 World Cup was dead in the water before the campaign was even launched, thanks to the Football Association betraying a gentleman’s agreement not to go against Germany.

The seeds for the disaster were sewn in the early Nineties when then FA chairman Sir Bert Millichip shook hands on a deal with the German FA where they would support England hosting Euro 96 and in return England would support their candidature for 2006.

So when the FA launched their 2006 bid there was consternation in FIFA – UEFA’s president Lennart Johansson was furious in case England split the European vote. As it turned out, it did not – only Scotland’s David Will voted for England, all the other Europeans backed Germany.

From 1998 to 2000 however, England campaigned under the banner “Football’s Coming Home”, doing their best to deny that Millichip had ever made a gentleman’s agreement.

That campaign was flawed too, with the idea that the World Cup needed to return to the birthplace of professional football being viewed as arrogant.

By the time of Euro 2000 in Holland and Belgium, the writing was on the wall and the behaviour of English hooligans in the Low Countries served only to hammer a nail into the coffin.

With only a month to go before the FIFA vote, many in the FA wanted England to pull out of the bidding but they pushed ahead. In the first round of voting, England secured five votes and Morocco were eliminated.

In the second round, Jack Warner and his CONCACAF bloc abandoned England for South Africa and England were eliminated with just two votes. Germany went on to beat South Africa by a single vote.

Afterwards, it was left to new FA chairman Geoff Thompson – now a FIFA vicepresident and chairman of the England 2018 to sum up “the brutal facts” about a bid that was misconceived from the very start.

Thompson said: “The brutal facts are that there were two unwanted bookends to the England 2006 bid. At one end was the gentleman’s agreement by which we agreed to step aside for the Germans after we’d been handed Euro 96.

“At the other is the sight of thugs masquerading as England fans at Euro 2000.

“People don’t want to reward a country that has fans like that. I’m afraid we couldn’t get over those problems.

“The fact that we attempted to overturn the gentleman’s agreement caused great consternation in Europe.

“Everybody in UEFA was fundamentally against us.”

It was Millichip, who died in 2002, who himself removed any doubt over whether there was a gentleman’s agreement or not.

Millichip said: “The FA was aware, when I reported back in 1993, that UEFA was supporting Germany. Those were my words ... many times.”