ZURICH - Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International on Monday called on FIFA to postpone the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, after renewed media allegations of corruption were made.

The call by the private campaign group came just days before the executive committee of world football's governing body was due to designate the two host nations under the eyes of a brace of world leaders and stars.

"The decision to award football's World Cup in 2018 and 2022, scheduled for Dec 2, 2010, must be postponed until full light is shed on the allegations published in the press," Transparency International Switzerland said.

"These have brought such discredit to the decision-making processes at FIFA that a decision in the current circumstances would only fuel the controversy," it said.

Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, African football chief Issa Hayatou and his South American counterpart, Nicolas Leoz, were tied to a secret list of payments from bankrupt FIFA marketing partner ISMM/ISL over a decade ago.

The firm collapsed in 2001 in a controversy over alleged kickbacks for TV rights contracts, prompting a FIFA criminal complaint that was later dropped.

A Swiss court handed down fines on three ISMM/ISL executives in 2008 for embezzlement or accounting offences.

Leoz was already listed as a recipient of suspect payments from the marketing firm, alongside several companies based in offshore havens, in evidence presented by the prosecutor in the Swiss canton of Zug in 2005.

Transparency said that even if those allegations were not proven, they needed to be investigated by an independent fact-finding body rather than FIFA's ethics committee.

The bidding race suffered a direct blow last month when an undercover British newspaper report prompted the ethics body to suspend two members of the 24-strong executive committee, Oceania football chief Reynald Temarii and Nigeria's Amos Adamu, for alleged misdealings in bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

There were also signs that the secret ballot on Thursday could slip into confusion as the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) sought the right to vote by replacing Temarii.

Although FIFA had suggested it would run the ballot with 22 of the 24 committee members, England 2018 bid Chief Executive Andy Anson was anticipating there would be 23.

"I think our colleagues in the OFC are confident they will be voting this week," Anson told journalists.

Temarii's lawyer, Geraldine Lesieur, said that FIFA wanted him to give up any appeal against his one-year suspension for misconduct, after being cleared of bribery, if it allows his substitution on the executive committee.

However, Temarii has not received the full ruling, a key legal step that would allow him to decide, she explained.

"Mr Temarii will decide after he has been informed of the motivated ruling," Lesieur said. "We are in an impasse."

FIFA chief Sepp Blatter has promised a "new FIFA" would choose the hosts, while acknowledging the need to examine more change afterwards to adapt to the growing economic stakes in football.

Agence France-Presse