ENGLAND’S Football Association (FA) has written to FIFA insisting on answers to “important questions” after Sepp Blatter indicated a deal had been agreed to give the 2018 World Cup to Russia before a vote took place.

    In the December 2010 vote, the FA, who spent 21 million pounds (US$32 million) on a bid to stage the tournament, won just two votes — one of them their own.

    Following last week’s revelations by Blatter, the suspended president of FIFA, the FA — following legal advice — has written to soccer’s global governing body demanding answers to a number of questions.

    “The FA has been reviewing its legal position and, as a result, has written to FIFA asking a series of important questions about the process by which the 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia,” a spokesman said Saturday.

    “The questions are all based on statements made by Mr. Blatter in the interviews he gave to the TASS news agency and the Financial Times last week. In the meantime we reserve the FA’s position legally.”

    Blatter claimed in an interview with Russian news agency TASS there had been an agreement for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup — and for the United States to stage the 2022 tournament until Michel Platini opted to back eventual winners Qatar.

    Meanwhile, Blatter, long the most powerful man in soccer, suffered a “medical incident” last weekend and had been placed under medical observation for 10 days, it was confirmed Friday.

    The 79-year-old Swiss administrator has been at the center of controversy since a corruption storm hit FIFA just ahead of his re-election to a fifth term in May. Blatter said days later he would stand down.(SD-Agencies)