AFC cancels February congress for FIFA council elections

The AFC had set Feb. 28 as the new date for the meeting after the extraordinary congress in Goa was postponed in September but the regional body will now meet in Bahrain in conjunction with the FIFA Congress in May 2017.

"The original date set for Kuala Lumpur had been based on the usual schedule of meetings for the FIFA Council, which would normally have met in March 2017 and with the newly elected AFC representatives," the AFC said in a statement.

"However, next year the FIFA Council will meet on January 10 to coincide with the Best FIFA Football Awards, which will be held in Zurich the day before."

Asia's three additional seats on the new council, which replaces the old FIFA Executive Committee and has already met twice, include one reserved for a woman.

Delegates to September's AFC extraordinary congress, which had been called to conduct the election, voted down the agenda of the meeting in a row over the disqualification of a Qatari candidate.

The next meeting of the FIFA Council will take place on Jan. 9-10. As part of its new set-up, the body will meet three times a year in January, May and November.

(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by John O'Brien)