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England’s 2018 World Cup bid has received a much-needed boost after Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, who had previously criticised the campaign, said it was “England’s time” to host the tournament.

Influential Warner, who is head of the Concacaf union of North American and Caribbean football associations, had called England’s bid lightweight.

But after meeting Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Trinidad, Warner said: “Brown felt England’s time had come. I agreed. England has the best infrastructure to stage the tournament. After a 52-year gap, this is England’s time.”

Warner’s support could not have come at a better moment for the bid, which has been rocked by infighting, reshuffles and resignations in recent weeks.

Brown said the Government was completely committed to the bid and that he was ready to do “whatever is necessary” to support it.

Warner added: “It was an exceptionally good meeting – it was the best case I have heard for a long time about the World Cup being in England.

“I was very impressed by Brown’s humility, his sincerity, his knowledge of the game, and most importantly he didn’t feel England had any divine right [to host the tournament]. He felt that England’s time had come - a point to which I subscribed.

“Next week I will meet David Beckham in Cape Town. These are not for my ego, but they are the assets that the bid should be using and I am happy to see that they are being used.”

Meanwhile, bid chairman Lord Triesman has taken responsibility for failing to stamp out the internal unrest but says he will not resign as he prepares for a vital week of lobbying in South Africa.

“Perhaps I’ve tried for a consensus pretty hard and haven’t succeeded – if that’s my fault then I accept that,” Triesman, who is also chairman of the Football Association, told Channel 4 News. “But what we’ve now got is a very slimmed-down, very focused group, and we are dividing the work up because we’ve got to win the votes of as many of the 24 [Fifa executive committee members] as we can.

“It’s been pretty disappointing. There are always arguments in football – you expect to have the arguments, resolve them, get on with it without people going outside the board and expressing the same criticisms they might have or arguments they might have had in the board.
“But everybody’s moved beyond it and one of the things that I think is very important is that people who have been involved all the way through have committed themselves personally to going around the world and being advocates.”