BBC are accused of being unpatriotic by Anson

The BBC plan to air the programme, which is expected to make corruption allegations against people involved with world football's governing body, on November 29.

England's bid leader Anson last week met with BBC director general Mark Thompson to express his fear it could harm the country's hopes of winning the December 2 vote but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

"I'm incredibly disappointed with the timing of what the BBC is proposing with Panorama," said Anson, just as a separate confidential FIFA report rated England's bid 'low risk' but left serious questions over Russia.

"If they truly believe there's a journalistic reason for this, they could have done it any time in the last two years; to do it like this is sensationalism.

"I didn't ask Mark Thompson for anything but all I said was: 'Here are the potential implications'.

"It's not very patriotic of the BBC. They could have done it any time in the last two years or next two years."

Anson believes the expose will simply cover old ground and said: "The issues seems to be things dealt with by the Swiss courts and by FIFA in the past.

"They're not happy with someone raking over old issues but, then, no one would be.

"Maybe we're overreacting. I'm hoping it's an uninteresting and uninspiring programme."

Panorama's will be the second recent media investigation into FIFA after Sunday Times reporters posed as lobbyists for a consortium of American companies looking to bring the World Cup to the United States, the newspaper allegedly exposing two officials it claims were willing to sell their votes.

That is widely believed to have hurt England's chances with some FIFA members unhappy with what they view as entrapment.

Meanwhile, a classified report says England are 'low risk' operationally and legally, jostling with Spain/Portugal, but Russia are designated a medium overall operational risk, and high for air transport.

That is the only 'high risk' designation for any European bidders although Holland/Belgium are rated medium-level legally due to issues with government guarantees.