FIFA Tuesday announced appointing a "normalisation committee" to revive the Football Association of Maldives (FAM) after the local governing body of the sport was hit by internal strife. A five-member team was appointed to draw up a new statute and hold elections by the end of September next year, a FIFA statement said. The move effectively sacked FAM president Ilham Ahmed.

"The decision to appoint a normalisation committee follows the collapse of the FAM Congress in September and resignations of several of the members of the FAM Executive Committee," the statement said. It said the internal strife made it "impossible to reach the necessary quorum to take valid decisions".

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2014