The Football Association will ask cities to apply to be considered as host venues for the 2018 World Cup bid.
The FA is looking at around 10 stadia to be earmarked for the finals and want individual cities to put forward bids to be included.
They are also keen for a wide a geographical spread as possible and new stadiums planned by Portsmouth and Bristol City - in cities overlooked in the 1966 World Cup and Euro 96 - are early contenders.
So far, only Wembley is a definite venue for 2018 if England win the right to be tournament hosts.
FA officials have already been in contact with some interested clubs to inform them what would be required in terms of space around stadia and organisational demands.
Meanwhile, it is understood FA chiefs will seek talks with the Government over crowd control at major events after the clashes between Rangers fans and riot police in Manchester on Wednesday night.
The FA do not believe the violence will have had an impact on their bid but feel there needs to be a closer look at issues such as all-day drinking by fans before an evening kick-off.
The bid for 2018 will start in earnest later this year after a chairman and chief executive are appointed to run the campaign, with the FA setting a deadline of October for this to have taken place.
Head-hunters will be appointed to find likely candidates and ideally the person who becomes chairman will be high-profile and have some link to football.
There are few people who would fulfil all criteria, but Gary Lineker would be the leading ex-player, while from club administration names such as Peter Kenyon, Rick Parry, David Dein and David Gill are likely to be highlighted by head-hunters.
The FA are to use a three-track approach to the campaign: first, producing a world-class technical bid with stadia fitting FIFA's requirements perfectly; secondly, identifying the right approach to winning at least 13 votes of FIFA's 24-man executive committee; thirdly, devising a campaign emphasising that an England World Cup would leave a legacy to the whole world.
In terms of the political campaign towards FIFA executive committee members, however, the 2018 bid has already run into a potential legal problem.
The firm European Consultancy Network (ECN), taken on by the FA six months ago, are no longer working for the bid and have now been told they have to tender along with all other companies for further work.
ECN - made up of Peter Hargitay, former advisor to and a personal friend of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, and ex-FIFA communications director Markus Siegler - are furious believing they had been signed up for the whole campaign and lawyers' letters have been exchanged by both ECN and the FA.
FA chairman Lord Triesman personally decided to ask ECN to tender again - he insists he wants a fully-transparent and open process for bid contracts - but that could prove to be an own goal as it is believed rival bidders for 2018 have already made initial approaches to sign up ECN instead.
FIFA will vote on the hosts in 2011 and the FA are working to a timetable of having FIFA's hosting requirements delivered to them in January next year, submitting their formal bid document in the autumn of 2010 with the world governing body's evaluation inspectors arriving in early 2011.
