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By Mike Collett
LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - FIFA vice-president Jack Warner believes England have waited long enough to host the World Cup again and is in favour of their bid to stage the 2018 finals.
Warner has previously been critical of England's role in football and last August said he would do all he could to prevent England hosting the finals for the first time since 1966.
His comments provoked a protest from Geoff Thompson, the former FA chairman but now Warner, president of the CONCACAF confederation, appears to have changed his position.
"The time has come" for England to host another World Cup, he said in an interview with Sky Sports News on Thursday.
"It is England's time. The fact is they invented this sport. They last held the World Cup 42 years ago. That is almost two to three generations. There are guys in England who have never seen a World Cup on English soil.
"I am saying that the time has come for England to come into its own."
Warner though, maintained that England were not popular among their European neighbours in UEFA.
"I have been critical of the FA. There seems to be some kind of situation where England was marginalised, but if England's time is 2018 I would be happy for them. However from time to time, this is not the collective view in Europe."
Warner, despite being dogged by a number of controversies, is an influential figure within FIFA and is a close confidant of FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Warner also said he was hopeful that England would play a friendly in his native Trinidad & Tobago in June as part of the national FA's centenary celebrations.
The two countries have met once before, in the World Cup finals in 2006 with England winning 2-0 in Nuremburg.
