FIFA's executive committee failed to reach agreement 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.

"No decision was taken, we will look at the matter again in Tokyo," executive committee member Nicolas Leoz told Reuters after today's meeting.

Leoz would not comment on the reasons for the delay. Blatter is due to hold a news conference later today.

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.

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.