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By Mark Ledsom
ZURICH, Oct 24 (Reuters) - FIFA's executive committee failed to reach agreement on Friday on the bidding process for the next two unassigned World Cups, delaying its decision on the bid timetable until its next meeting in December.
The executive committee had been due to vote on a proposal by FIFA president Sepp Blatter to run the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments simultaneously.
"The committee gave a positive reaction to the general principle that we open the bidding for the two tournaments together," Blatter told a news conference after the meeting.
"But the committee members asked if we could look not only at the proposed advantages but also some of the inconveniences that might arise, and three or four asked to postpone the issue until our next meeting in seven weeks' time."
South Africa and Brazil were awarded the 2010 and 2014 World Cups under a short-lived rotation system under which FIFA planned to move its flagship tournament in strict rotation from continent to continent.
FIFA decided last year to end the rotation policy, opening up the 2018 bidding contest to a much larger field.
A simultaneous bidding process would enable some potential hosts to instead focus their efforts on the 2022 tournament, for which they would also have more time to prepare.
NEW RULES
On the downside, the procedure would be complicated by FIFA's new bidding rules which state that the tournament cannot be awarded to a continent that has hosted one of the two preceding World Cups.
As a result, bidders for 2022 would run the risk of missing out automatically if the 2018 event was handed to a country within the same continent.
"I think it is a sensible decision and one which the FIFA president agreed with," executive committee member and former World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer told Reuters.
"Many of the associations had only heard about this idea to award both tournaments simultaneously through the media, so delaying the decision gives us all more time to discuss the proposal and hear people's thoughts on it."
Although the bidding process has not yet begun, Belgium and the Netherlands have already formally told FIFA that they would like to host the 2018 event.
Several other countries, including the United States, Mexico, England, Spain, China and Australia, have also expressed interest either on an informal basis to FIFA officials or through national media statements.
Blatter said on Friday he knew of "between 10 and 12" national associations who wished to stage one of the upcoming tournaments.
