Despite pressure for Eriksson to be replaced by an Englishman, Dutchman Hiddink, who will be in charge of Australia in Germany, was installed as the bookmakers favourite to take on the most high-pressure job in international football management.

Eriksson's departure was announced late on Monday after a day of negotiations at FA headquarters.

The Swede said he wanted to draw a line under recent events and concentrate on going out with a bang in Germany. "I care passionately about this job and I want everyone to know that," the 57-year-old said.

"I have always enjoyed the incredible support of the fans and I know how important they will be to us in Germany.

"This summer is the culmination of everything we have been working towards over the last five years. Let's go and win the World Cup."

Barwick had been forced to act after Sven was recorded claiming there was a culture of corruption in English football, as well as making a string of unflattering comments about current England fans.

"The FA and Sven felt it was important to clarify his future," the FA boss said. "There has been so much speculation surrounding this matter in recent weeks and months, it was important to resolve it now."

Bolton boss Sam Allardyce, Charlton's Alan Curbishley and Middlesbrough's Steve McClaren, one of England's coaches under Eriksson, will also all be in the running.

But the reality facing the Football Association (FA) is that there is no Englishman who is an obvious choice or can match Hiddink's experience or achievement, notably in taking South Korea to the last four of the 2002 World Cup.

Allardyce and McLaren have only minimal experience of European club football, Curbishley has none and only McLaren has been involved in the international game.

Eriksson's reign is to be cut short two years before the expiry of his contract following a fall-out with his bosses at the FA that was triggered by a string of ill-judged comments to an undercover reporter from tabloid newspaper, the News of the World.

The episode was the latest in a string of incidents which had seen Eriksson try the patience of his employers.

In the run-up to Euro 2004, it was revealed that the Swede had been talking to Chelsea about taking up the vacancy eventually filled by Jose Mourinho.

That episode resulted in Eriksson's contract being extended to 2008, on substantially enhanced terms that mean the Swede will depart in the summer with a pay-off believed to be in excess of three million pounds, equivalent to around 40 percent of the amount he would have earned had he stayed on.

The governing body also had to grapple with the fall-out from Eriksson's eventful love life and subsequent kiss-and-tell revelations, including the affair with FA secretary Faria Alam that led to the resignation of then chief executive Mark Palios last year.

Brian Barwick, who replaced Palios in the wake of that particular fiasco, has indicated that he wants an Englishman to succeed Eriksson but other candidates will be considered.

The FA is under pressure from the League Manager's Association (LMA) and the players' union, the PFA, not to take on another foreigner.

But it is safe to assume that an application from Mourinho, for example, would stand a good chance of success and Martin O'Neill, the former Celtic manager, also has a superior c.v. to any of the English candidates.

O'Neill, a former Northern Ireland international, is currently out of the game caring for his wife, who has cancer, and it is not certain he would be interested in the England job.

Sports Minister Richard Caborn said the FA could not afford to rule out foreign candidates.

"You would like it to be an English or British person but you have to acknowledge that football, and much professional sport, is now global.

"If you look at rugby, cricket and tennis they all have or have had foreign coaches as well so it would be wrong to restrict the search just to people from this country.

"If we want success, the most sensible thing to do is to employ the best person."

LMA chairman Howard Wilkinson urged the FA to go for an Englishman.

"My point of view as chairman of the League Managers' Association is we would hope that English contenders for the position have got more than a head start."

Players chief Gordon Taylor said: "It's a bad reflection on the game as a coach and a manager if this country - the strongest in the world for football - can't produce a quality coach and manager."

The PFA supremo added: "Brazil would virtually always go for a Brazilian manager and that is a faith in their own system and that is a system that has proved that probably they are the best of international football."