Hull City bosses accused the Football Association yesterday of being prejudiced over its handling of the controversial bid to change the name to the Hull Tigers.

Owner Assem Allam applied to rebrand Hull from next season, much to the chagrin of supporters of the club's 110-year-old name.

But the FA membership committee unanimously recommended a rejection of the name change.

An FA insider told the BBC he would be "astonished" if the council rejected the committee's advice.

"The recommendation, which came after consultation with stakeholders within and outside of the game, will be discussed and voted upon at a full FA council meeting on April 9 2014," said an FA statement.

"Hull City are able to make a further submission to the FA council in view of the written reasons, which they have received."

Hull responded with their own statement: "The club are disappointed with the timing of Monday's announcement made by the FA.

"We feel we have been prejudiced right from the outset. The FA introduced a new policy to handle our application on the back of consultations with (supporters group) City Til We Die, and we therefore feel that our application was already pre-judged.

Allam outraged the City Til We Die group by saying they could "die as soon as they want."

The statement went on: "This feeling has been reinforced with Monday's announcement, as the club feel this will further prejudice the forthcoming ballot of season pass holders" designed to canvas opinions.

Allam's son Ehab, the club's vice-chairman, wrote an open letter to fans sayying most clubs with "city" in the name are of middling size and in around the same league position.

"We need something that makes us stand out from the pool of teams we find ourselves in when it comes to attracting potential international sponsors," he said.