The Football Association last night admitted that they were ready to ask Jose Mourinho if he wanted to be considered for the post of England head coach but denied he had already been offered the job.

The former Chelsea manager has declared his interest, but reports that the offer to succeed Steve McClaren had already been made were described as “without foundation” by one FA official closely involved in the head-hunting process.

He said that an appointment was “not near”, although Mourinho’s agent, Jorge Mendes, confirmed that the FA had made contact.

Mourinho, controversially sacked by Chelsea in September, is the so-called ‘People’s Choice’ and has told friends in Portugal that he is attracted “because England cannot get any worse”. That said, Mendes indicated that his client had another “big job” in the offing, believed to be AC Milan.

Initial approaches have also been made to Fabio Capello, the former Real Madrid manager. Franco Baldini, who worked alongside Capello at Real and Roma, said: “There has been no official contact from the FA yet, though people who say they are agents for the FA have contacted Mr Capello.

He would be interested in talking to them but first they have to proceed, and make contact.

“It is difficult to say anything concrete, but Mr Capello would take pleasure in it [the England job], but so far there is no serious contact.”

Capello, 61 and vastly experienced, is the preferred alternative to Mourinho, who may yet spurn England if the right offer is forthcoming from Milan. Support for the Special One is not unanimous among the FA hierarchy, with sceptics pointing to the fact that he cannot buy success at an international level as he was accused of doing at Stamford Bridge where he won two Premier League titles.

The FA insist there is no agreed formal shortlist, but accept that the five names quoted in midweek - Mourinho, Capello, Martin O’Neill, Jurgen Klinsmann and Marcello Lippi – are the ones that crop up time and again in their deliberations. Suggestions that Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA’s director of coaching and development, is again championing the cause of West Ham’s Alan Curbishley, who was interviewed the last time the job was vacant, are said to be “wide of the mark”.

After his embarrassment 18 months ago, when he went chasing after Portugal’s Luiz Felipe Scolari, only to be publicly rebuffed, the FA’s chief executive, Brian Barwick, is intent on discretion, at least until formal interviews take place. With that in mind, he is not prepared to comment on the progress of the search, but one of his closest aides revealed that “initial soundings” had been made, and that Mourinho and Capello were ahead of the rest.

Barwick and Brooking, the two main men commissioned to make the choice, which will be rubber-stamped by the FA board, are anxious not to repeat the mistakes of last year, when the way they went about replacing Sven-Göran Eriksson was derided by many as a “beauty contest”. O’Neill, Curbishley and Sam Allardyce were shortlisted and interviewed in a glare of publicity, only to be humiliated when Barwick rejected them and offered the job to Scolari before settling for McClaren.

The chief executive knows his own position is dependent on getting it right this time, and is preparing the ground carefully before making his move. In a return to the way in which his predecessor, Adam Crozier, appointed Eriksson, Barwick is speaking to the agents of the various candidates to ascertain their availability, interest and terms. Mendes was his first call, and the indications last night were that the positive response would be followed up within the next week.

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