Failed World Cup bid cost £11m

The Football Association is likely to come under further fire over its failed World Cup bid after the disclosure last night of detailed costs of the project.

The Football Association is likely to come under further fire over its failed World Cup bid after the disclosure last night of detailed costs of the project.

The FA's budget to bring the 2006 World Cup to England totalled £10.77m, of which nearly one third came from lottery funds. Despite the expenditure England finished a poor third in the voting by Fifa, the world game's governing body, as Germany pipped South Africa after the New Zealand delegate abstained.

Among the costs revealed by the FA was £440,000 spent on fees paid over a period of four years to Sir Bobby Charlton and Sir Geoff Hurst and, at the start of the project, to Gary Lineker. All three men helped to front the bid.

It is understood that Sir Bobby and Sir Geoff received about £200,000 each and Mr Lineker about £40,000. The FA stressed, however, that this was not public money and that the three men could have earned much more from private appearances in that time.

The travel costs as the bid team flew around the world in an attempt to drum up votes amounted to £1m. The final reward was five votes in the first round, from the Scottish, New Zealand, Trinidadian, Costa Rican and American delegates. By the second round, only Scotland and New Zealand were voting for England, which then dropped out of the competition.

The budget figures revealed that the FA spent £280,000 taking a six-man team of Fifa inspectors on a five-day tour of England. They travelled by helicopter to grounds around the country and attended a gala dinner at Hampton Court Palace and a private dinner at Claridges - where they were entertained by the singer Chris de Burgh - with members of England's 1966 World Cup-winning team.

The bid document cost £880,000 to produce. It is understood that a substantial proportion of that sum was paid to Elmwood, a design agency in Leeds. Staff costs - at one stage the bid had 17 full-time employees - amounted to £1.66m.