Ralf Rangnick, the sporting director of Bundesliga leaders RB Leipzig, has confirmed that he was one of the candidates to take the England job from Roy Hodgson last summer and revealed the closeness he has with FA Director of Football Dan Ashworth.

Rangnick, 58, whose RB Leipzig team have risen from the non league from their founding just seven years ago to head Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga, was interviewed last summer along with Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce and Guus Hiddink and is a favourite with Ashworth, who had tried to recruit him previously.

And the former Schalke and Hoffenheim coach, who kept in touch with Ashworth in recent years, said: ‘It was sort of an honour as a German coach to be asked if I would be available for that job but even if they had offered me the job I wouldn’t have stopped working for Red Bull, not completely.

Ralf Rangnick (right) has confirmed that he was one of the candidates to take the England job

The RB Leipzig squad salute their fans following their 2-1 victory over Schalke on Saturday

'Of course I couldn’ t have stayed in my current job but for me I wouldn’t leave the whole thing here for job.

‘Dan called and I spoke to our owner and our global CEO Oliver Mintzlaff what I should do and they both said: “Go the meeting speak to the people.” That was it and two days later they decided to go for Sam Allardyce which was absolutely perfect.

‘I didn’t like the whole thing to become public to be honest. It didn’t become public when we met. It only became public a couple of days after Sam Allardyce was no longer coach of the team.

Roy Hodgson resigned his post as England manager after a 2-1 defeat by Iceland at Euro 2016

‘I think people know that before I came to Red Bull, Dan was trying to sign me as the head coach of West Brom and he was still there. In the end I decided to turn the offer down because told me in private that he was leaving West Brom even if I came, because he already had the offer from the FA at that time.

‘So I said without Dan Ashworth, me being on my won, it doesn’t make sense for me to go there. Since then we were in regular contact and I wouldn’t have given it up here for sure as there’s too much time and too much enthusiasm and passion involved for the last four and half years, as you can imagine on the way up. There was a lot of passion, work and time involved to achieve that.’