Horne believes FIFA chiefs will not launch retaliatory strike

The move failed and triggered a succession of anti-English comments from FIFA members, outraged at what they saw as an attempt to undermine an organisation still reeling from the damaging corruption allegations levelled against one-time presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner.

It has been suggested a concerted effort may be made to scrap the preferential status enjoyed by the Home Associations within FIFA.

However, after backing the plan to prevent the election going ahead, Horne does not see FIFA launching a retaliatory strike.

“I don’t see how they can sanction us. I am not sure they can do that in an appropriate, transparent way. We are not breaching laws, so I don’t lose any sleep over it.”

Horne confirmed the FA had written to Blatter but there were no plans to meet the Swiss to try to resolve some of the bitterness that has been festering since England failed to secure host status for the 2018 World Cup.

Through UEFA, the FA will now attempt to “work constructively” to try to assist the work that will be done by what Blatter has labelled as his “solutions committee”, aimed at bringing greater corporate governance to what at times have appeared distinctly shady FIFA affairs.

However, even that may not be easy given the FA went against UEFA guidance in midweek and president Michel Platini has never been viewed as an England fan.

But Horne insists England are not pariahs in the world of football politics. “We had two meetings with UEFA, one on Monday morning, one on Wednesday morning. We had general support for the view that we should look at independent appropriate reform and transparency and all the other things that we have heard about already.

“We have had private support from within that room. I will keep it private for the moment.

“We will keep working on who we see as our allies because that European relationship for us is key. We need to represent English football appropriately in Europe.”

Lord Coe has also expressed his disappointment over FIFA’s failure to act upon his anti-corruption World Cup bidding reforms.

During his three years as chairman of the world governing body’s ethics committee, Lord Coe sought to introduce new rules to avoid the kind of allegations that have rocked FIFA.

However, he feels the organisation “took their foot off the pedal” on his proposals when he stood down in 2009 to avoid a conflict of interest with his role in the England 2018 campaign.

Lord Coe said: “There is absolutely no doubt that the view of me and some of my colleagues on the ethics committee was that once they (FIFA) had moved from continental rotation to actually choosing countries outside of that norm, the structure of that bidding process was not fit for purpose. There was no question about that.

“I suppose, for me, the only frustration was that when I got asked to help England’s bid for 2018, we were as a committee at that stage putting a framework together for the bidding countries.

“I was driving it particularly because of the Olympic experience. It does appear to me that when I stepped down to do the England stuff, the thing that they took their foot off the pedal on was that.

“That now has to be a serious priority, to get some structure back into that.”