The Football Association has defended its rejigged loyalty programme after coming in for criticism from England fans during Monday's European Championship qualifier in Switzerland.

Over the summer plans were announced to alter the loyalty points system that rewards supporters for following the national team.

The previous scheme, englandfans, saw supporters get two 'caps' for following the team abroad and one for a match at Wembley.

However, that has been reversed under the new England Supporters Club, with those attending Wembley matches getting two points as opposed to those making the effort to go abroad.

"Two caps for Wembley, you're having a laugh" was chanted by supporters during England's 2-0 victory in Switzerland on Monday, but the FA has defended those changes.

"Our focus is on making Wembley a home for England which means well-engaged, well-rewarded loyal fans fully supporting the emerging young talent that we have in the England team," an FA spokesman said.

"We want that team to enjoy playing in front of those fans at Wembley.

"Of course, we continue to be grateful for our amazing travelling support which is why we transferred all the caps previously earned by those supporters over to the new England Supporters Club.

"As such they will remain at the top of the priority list for tournament tickets if they continue to support England home and away, as many of them have done for many years."

That statement rankled with Steve Grant, an England fan who travels home and away to matches including Monday's game in Basle.

He says those caps would have been automatically transferred under the pre-standing terms and conditions, pointing to the fact this issue is the tip of the iceberg.

"Those that travel away are the ones funding the supporters' club as a whole through subscriptions and those people are doing it to get away and tournament tickets," Grant told Press Association Sport.

"Getting to Wembley is obviously easier than travelling to Lithuania and fans should be rewarded for their efforts.

"The FA can throw as many facts and figures about how they are 'engaging' with us, but the simple fact is that two-thirds of the paying members from the last campaign haven't renewed - a poor performance in the World Cup certainly isn't the only reason for that.

"Rather than trying to effectively bribe people who almost certainly would have gone to Wembley anyway, thereby rendering the new changes completely ineffective, they should be reducing ticket prices for the array of unattractive fixtures we have coming up to get people through the turnstiles."