"When I left office at the end of 2002 I felt the Anglican communion was in good heart," he said. "It is difficult to say in what way we are now a communion. Bitterness, hostility, misunderstanding and strife now separate provinces from one another and divide individual provinces."

He also challenged the Church of England's statement on civil partnerships by describing it as "a serious and extraordinary departure from the Church's practice".

"I think one of the problems is trying to solve individual and infinitely varied problems by legislation."

Last month the Law Commission, set up by the government to recommend legal reform, proposed that live-in couples should be able to claim a share of each other's wealth, including property, pensions and other assets, if they split up and were left financially vulnerable.

This is of course not the World Cup, but the struggle over homosexuality that threatens to split the Anglican Communion. The future of the Communion could be decided at the general convention of the US church next week. Unity will stand or fall on whether the Episcopal Church of the US agrees a moratorium on gay consecrations called for by the Windsor report.

"As scholars," reads the Executive Summary of the Principles, "we are persuaded that the case for marriage can be made and won at the level of reason. Marriage protects children, men and women, and the common good. The health of marriage is particularly important in a free society, which depends upon citizens to govern their private lives and rear their children responsibly, so as to limit the scope, size, and power of the state."