THE scandal engulfing the FA may have claimed its first two victims last night.

But the resignation chief executive Mark Palios and the news that director of communications Colin Gibson has offered to quit could actually strengthen Sven Goran Eriksson's chances of holding onto his job.

The position of both men became untenable when a Sunday newspaper ran a transcript of a telephone call made by Gibson.

During the call, Gibson offered to disclose details of Eriksson's affair with FA secretary Faria Alam if the newspaper agreed to ignore Palios' relationship with the same woman.

While Palios himself is understood to have known nothing about the call, the conversation, and the resignation it has brought about, seriously undermine the FA's ability to take the moral high ground when it comes to their manager.

Eriksson is under investigation for allegedly having lied to his employers when quizzed about his relationship with Alam.

But, while the FA can argue that he can no longer be trusted to run the national side, they will find it difficult to maintain that he has brought the association into disrepute. Clearly, the FA's top brass have been able to do that themselves.

There are still members of the FA hierarchy who would love to see Eriksson forced out, but public support is beginning to swing behind the England boss because of the way in which his employers appear to be willing to stoop to anything to discredit him.

While Eriksson has hardly helped himself in the last week, it increasingly looks as though he is the victim of an FA witch-hunt that is more unpalatable than any of the accusations being levelled at the Swede.

Yesterday's revelations showed that English football's governing body was willing to sacrifice its manager in order to protect its highest-ranking servant.

Eriksson has many faults, some of which played a significant role in England crashing out of the last World Cup and this summer's European Championships, but he did not deserve to be hung out to dry in so cold and calculating a fashion.

He has done nothing so far to suggest that he is going to follow Palios and Gibson's lead and fall on his own sword - if the FA still want rid of him they are going to have to force him out themselves.

That could still happen, of course, but, with all the chaos that is currently engulfing Soho Square, sacking the England boss is hardly going to calm the situation.

The FA is now looking for its third chief executive in the space of just 13 months and, as an organisation, the governing body has lost all sense of credibility.