Bolivia's Morales protests FIFA ban on Andean peak

CHACALTAYA, Bolivia, June 2 (Reuters) Bolivian President Evo Morales played soccer near the top of a 5,400-metre mountain to prove to the sport's world governing body that playing at high altitude is safe.

''From here we've demonstrated that we can play at high altitude,'' Morales told reporters yesterday seconds after finishing the 40-minute game on Chacaltaya mountain, as he gasped for air.

Morales' team of government officials and former professional footballers helicoptered to the top of the mountain to play the game in shorts on a dirt pitch in nearly freezing temperatures against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains.

The leftist president, 47, scored a goal and his team won 9-3 against a side of university students.

The decision by FIFA to ban international matches at altitudes over 2,500 metres triggered outrage in soccer-loving Andean nations Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, which would not be able to host games in some of their largest cities.

Announcing the ban last week, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said playing soccer at high altitude posed a risk to health and was against fair play.

Earlier this week, Morales called the ban ''discriminatory'' and invited the mayors of all affected cities to attend a meeting in Bolivia's administrative capital, La Paz, on June 6.

A delegation headed by Bolivia's Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana arrived in Zurich on Wednesday to press FIFA to call off the ban.

''It's possible that FIFA's executive committee will overturn this unilateral decision'', Quintana told the state-run TV network from Zurich in a telephone interview yesterday.

The ban means Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador are barred from playing in their own capitals while Peru cannot play in Cuzco, where they were thinking of staging their home qualifiers for the next World Cup.

Football officials in those countries have accused FIFA of favoring Latin America's soccer powerhouses Argentina and Brazil, who frequently complain of having to face their Andean neighbors in the oxygen-thin air of the mountains.

The Andeans argue that if FIFA bans high-altitude soccer, it should also outlaw matches in excessive heat or cold.

REUTERS PDS BST0428