John McBeth, the Scottish FA president, will become the next British vice-president of Fifa after yesterday's election for the post ended in defeat for the two favourites. A power struggle between the FA chairman, Geoff Thompson, and the Irish FA president, Jim Boyce, ended in stalemate between the pair and allowed McBeth to nip in instead.

It means that the Scottish lawyer David Will, who has held the position for 17 years, will be succeeded by another Scot. The English, meanwhile, are privately furious that they have been thwarted again and that it is more than 50 years since they held the privileged position.