FIFA president Sepp Blatter accused the English of sour grapes yesterday over their lost bid to host the 2018 World Cup. FIFA has been rocked by new allegations of graft after a British parliamentary committee last week heard testimony about bribes being offered during the bidding process to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The corruption allegations attracted wide coverage in the British press, with reports branding FIFA officials "sleazeballs" and "rotten to the core".

"The British press have always been very critical regarding football and FIFA. It didn't start with me. It's been a long time," Blatter told AFP.

"There is a sort of stubbornness against football and FIFA. Of course there is the fact that England didn't get the World Cup. But perhaps you have to analyse why. The English say: 'If we'd been told that the World Cup was going towards new territories, we wouldn't have bid.' If they'd followed the policy of the FIFA president, they would have seen that the World Cup was in the process of circulating, in Asia (2002), South Africa (2010), Brazil (2014)."