Brian Barwick, the chief executive of the FA, met the Portugal head coach for face-to-face talks yesterday afternoon as he sought to bring an end to the uncertainty that has enveloped the search for Sven-Göran Eriksson’s successor.

Barwick returned to London this afternoon and admitted that he had met with Scolari.

"I was in Lisbon yesterday talking to Luiz Felipe Scolari as part of our ongoing process to recruit the next senior England national coach," he said. "That process continues apace."

The FA is understood to be confident that it has landed its man, even though, as Barwick boarded the plane, the Portuguese FA continued to insist that Scolari would not accept any job before the World Cup finals in Germany begin on June 9. “We have got a gentlemen’s agreement and it will not be broken,” Gilberto Madail, the federation chairman, said, but sources insisted that an agreement was being hammered out.

Scolari himself was giving nothing away. "I have nothing to say. Go away," was the sum total of his comments to reporters outside the Portuguese Football Federation offices in Lisbon.

With personal terms not thought to be an issue — Scolari is understood to earn considerably less than the estimated £3 million on offer — Scolari's potential appointment raises the prospect of him facing England in Germany this summer as manager-elect, possibly in the quarter-finals. He has knocked David Beckham and Co out of the past two leading tournaments, with Brazil and Portugal respectively. He will not want to celebrate too wildly if history repeats itself.

The appointment of England’s first South American coach still has to be ratified by the full board, but provided that Barwick has closed the deal, that should be a formality. Even members of the FA’s headhunting panel who had been against another foreign appointment have decided that Scolari, 57, is the best man for the job.

A double winner of the Libertadores (the South American championship), a world champion with Brazil in 2002 and a finalist with Portugal at Euro 2004, Scolari’s CV was by far the most impressive of the five men on the FA’s shortlist. Doubts about his moderate English were resolved at a clandestine interview in a manor house in Oxford, where he converted those councillors who had previously planned to vote for Martin O’Neill, Sam Allardyce and Steve McClaren.

Aside from the League Managers Association, opposition may be muted, given Scolari’s credentials. Many leading figures within the game have declared that an Englishman should be chosen, but even those who have missed out on the job may accept that they have something to learn from a world champion.

Barwick was accompanied to Lisbon by Simon Johnson, the FA’s head of legal affairs. Both men will hope that they have concluded a process that had started to bring the governing body into disrepute. Clubs and candidates were becoming increasingly vexed by the twists and turns.

A meeting between the headhunting panel on Friday confirmed that Scolari, whose case had been pushed by David Dein, the Arsenal vice-chairman, was the preferred candidate of the majority. Even Dave Richards, the chairman of the FA Premier League, had accepted that the Brazilian should be offered the job, despite it being rare for him and Dein to agree on anything. Richards had previously talked of a desire to appoint a British manager, but the FA could hardly make a more exotic choice.

With Scolari claiming that he would refuse to enter into any further negotiations for fear of upsetting the Portuguese people, it appeared that the FA might have to reconsider. However, there was an expectation last night that a deal had been struck out in Lisbon. It remains to be seen how Scolari will be treated in Portugal, given that he will be seen to have gone back on his word.

If confirmed, the appointment will leave O’Neill, the early favourite, without either the England or Newcastle United position and the disappointed English candidates licking their wounds. Barwick will claim it as a coup, but some questions are still to be answered.

• Earlier today reports in London suggested that Scolari has accepted the Football Association's offer for him to become the next England manager. The Evening Standard has reported that the 57-year-old told Barwick that he will replace Eriksson after the World Cup - accepting a deal that is believed to earn him in the region of £3 million per year.

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