Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, today gave renewed backing to England’s bid to stage the World Cup in 2018, and "bring football back home", as he tipped David Beckham to lift the trophy in Berlin in July.

Writing in Goldman Sachs’ economic report on the World Cup, published on the day that Sven Goran Eriksson, the England team coach, named his provisional squad for the tournament in Germany, Mr Brown said, "I believe this is England’s best chance to win a major tournament since Euro ’96."

Mr Brown is a genuine football fan, having been to three previous World Cups, including watching Scotland from the terraces in 1982.

"After suffering at the hand of Maradona in 1986, and falling to cruel penalty shoot-out defeats in 1990 and 1998, surely England are due a change of luck this time?" he wrote.

"If they get it, I believe David Beckham can lift the World Cup this summer."

As a prime minister-in-waiting, Mr Brown also turned his attention to a competition England might have a better change of winning – for the rights to stage the tournament in 2018. The United Kingdom has only ever staged the tournament, run by Fifa, the football world body, once, in England in 1966, when the hosts won at Wembley.

"Never has interest in football been higher, never the quality of the game greater, and never the excitement of a World Cup more intense," Mr Brown wrote.

"I believe that intense excitement will grow in this country if England is able to mount a bid for World Cup 2018. To follow the London Olympics in 2012 with the World Cup six years later would be a magnificent achievement for our country. It would emphasise just how much of a sporting nation we are.

"And I am determined to play whatever part I can in making it possible. Wherever I go in the world over the next few years, I will be on a mission to persuade other countries that it is time for the World Cup to come here in 2018.

"We supported Nelson Mandela in taking the World Cup to Africa in 2010, and on my recent visits to Mozambique and other African countries, I asked them to back our bid.

"In future years, we will support our friends abroad in taking the tournament to Australasia, and back to Asia and the Americas. But in 2018, it will have been more than 50 years since this country - which gave football to the world - has had the chance to host the world’s greatest tournament. So we will ask others to support us in bringing football back home.

"It is because of the power and importance of football that we are investing a record amount in grassroots football, with money going to organisations such as the Football Foundation and Supporters’ Direct.

"And with the launch of the new National Sports Foundation in April 2006, backed with nearly £35 million of public money over the next two years, we aim to work in partnership with football, the private sector and other sports to improve participation, coaching and facilities for all those who take part in sport, young and old, across the country."

For England's World Cup squad, click here