The IAAF has agreed a new slimmed-down global circuit of 24 one-day athletics meetings, to be called the IAAF World Athletics Tour, with the aim of showcasing the sport.

The decision was reached at a weekend meeting of the IAAF Council in Moscow [Images].

The council also agreed to award the 2008 world indoor championships to Valencia and the 2007 world cross country championships to Mombasa in Kenya.

With 24 IAAF one-day meetings in 2006, compared to 34 in 2005, the objective of the new World Athletics Tour is to ensure that only the best quality competitions are staged under the IAAF brand, the IAAF website said.

There will be two levels of meetings with different prize money structures and points for qualification towards the IAAF world athletics final in Stuttgart, Germany [Images] on September 9-10.

The IAAF Golden League brand and name will be retained to form the first level together with the IAAF Super Grand Prix. Second level meetings will be known as the IAAF Grand Prix.

IAAF president Lamine Diack told the website: "The new World Athletics Tour, with a reduced number of higher quality meetings, coupled with a well-devised evaluation concept and scheme, will help us to maintain only the best meetings in the world under the IAAF umbrella, while at the same time, helping to raise the standard of area circuits around the world."

The first meeting is scheduled to take place in Melbourne, Australia, on March 9.

Valencia, awarded the 2008 world indoors on Sunday, failed last year in a bid to host the 2009 world outdoors, losing out to Berlin.

Diack said of Valencia: "This council has been impressed by the city's enthusiasm and willingness to come back with another attempt to host a world class athletics event."

Mombasa was the sole bidder to host the 2007 world cross country championships after Florida [Images] and Madrid pulled out.