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Uefa president Michel Platini believes England’s 2018 World Cup bid can recover from the scandal surrounding former Football Association chairman Lord Triesman’s alleged comments about rival bidders.

Triesman stepped down as chairman of the FA and leader of the 2018 bid on Sunday (May 16) after being secretly taped apparently suggesting that Spain wanted Russia’s help to bribe referees at this summer’s World Cup in exchange for supporting its bid for the 2018 tournament.

Asked if England's bid had been damaged, Platini said: "Maybe yes – I think you need the people who vote on your side. But for the bid [the new chairman] Geoff Thompson is a good guy, England is a great country and of course it can recover and survive this."

Triesman forged a close working relationship with Platini and the Frenchman, speaking in Zürich at the International FA Board meeting, added: "I have a good friendship with Lord Triesman and I want to help him in his bad moment, for him as a person. I want to support my friend in this big problem. I think it is a bad thing that happened to him.”

Another Fifa executive committee member, Marios Lefkaritis from Cyprus, said England's bid could have been badly affected by the incident. Lefkaritis, who added that it was "evil" to have Triesman taped without his knowledge, stated: "I know from my own experience sometimes you have the best and suddenly you destroy yourself, which is a tragedy."

But Jack Warner, the controversial Fifa vice-chairman who has been critical of England's bid in the past, agreed with Platini that it could bounce back. "It's unfortunate but the English FA dealt with it appropriately and quickly and therefore I don't believe there'll be too much negative reaction from it," he told Bloomberg.