A day after denying North America's request for an accelerated awarding of the 2026 World Cup, FIFA unveiled a revised schedule for a bidding process that could confirm the hosts for the tournament as early as June of 2018.

The proposal received approval on Thursday at the annual FIFA Congress in Manama, Bahrain.

The organization has opened a 90-day window for which FIFA-member associations can submit a proposal for the 2026 World Cup with August 11 set as the deadline. Based on specific criteria set by FIFA, bids will be accepted from Africa (CAF), South American (CONMEBOL) and Oceania (OFC) with CONCACAF's bid from Canada, the United States and Mexico also to be formalized.

Europe (UEFA) and Asia (AFC) are not currently eligible to bid because they are hosting the next World Cups — Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.

The 2026 World Cup is set to be the first under the new revised format approved earlier this year that will see a 48-nation, 80-match tournament.

The council agreed entry quotas for the finals of: Europe 16, Africa nine, Asia eight, South America six, CONCACAF six, Oceania one. Two qualifiers will advance from a six-team mini-tournament in November 2025, with all confederations apart from UEFA represented.

The host country will automatically qualify for the finals and that slot will be removed from its confederation's quota. If there are multiple hosts, the FIFA Council will decide how many qualify automatically.

Among Canada, the United States and Mexico, the three nations have hosted 13 FIFA World Cups (men's, women's and youth). The last such event was the 2015 Women's World Cup held in locations across Canada.

"The 2026 FIFA World Cup is an exciting opportunity for Canadian Soccer," said Steve Reed, president of the Canadian Soccer Association in a statement. "We've hosted the FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 which was arguably the most successful in history. As a country, we are very proud of our ability to host major events and we unequivocally know that we would help make a great success of the 2026 FIFA World Cup."

Among the criteria being looked at in the bidding process will be sustainable management, infrastructure, human rights concerns and government support.

"Canada Soccer will be ready with its partners at the appropriate time to assemble the technical bid as instructed by FIFA," CSA general secretary Peter Montopoli said in a staement. "The opportunity of hosting a FIFA World Cup will elevate the sport's footprint in this country, through the matches themselves and the global interest and promotion that the FIFA World Cup will deliver from coast to coast to coast across Canada."

The FIFA Council hopes for a decision to be taken at the congress in June 2018 in Moscow. If that congress is not satisfied that the bid — or bids — presented meet FIFA's technical or human rights requirements, the process would be re-opened and any country would be allowed to enter the race before a 2020 vote.

"For us, the most important thing was having an expedited process rather than a two or three year process and the council agreed with that," said U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati, who sits on the FIFA Council. "We are happy to have competition because we are fully confident in the bid we can put together and the sort of World Cup we can put on."

But Asian confederation leader Sheikh Salman told CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani at a public meeting on Tuesday that the North American bid "will be the favourite."

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With files from The Canadian Press