The president of football's world governing body is vowing to reform the way future World Cup host cities are selected.

FIFA chief Sepp Blatter pledged Wednesday that all 208 of the group's members would be allowed to pick the sites for the quadrennial matches. Currently, FIFA's 24-member executive committee selects the winning World Cup host cities, but it has been widely criticized for awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 matches to Qatar.

Blatter announced the policy change just hours before he was poised to win unopposed re-election to his fourth four-year term. England had called for a postponement of FIFA's presidential election for several months to allow for investigation of bribery allegations surrounding the selection of the World Cup sites.

But a big majority of the delegations to the FIFA meeting in Zurich, Switzerland rejected England's call for delaying the vote.