World soccer's governing body FIFA has thrown Ethiopia out of the World Cup following a long-running row over the leadership of the country's football federation with immediate effect. The decision was taken by the Bureau of the Organising Committee for the Fifa World Cup.

FIFA announced on Friday that Ethiopia had been removed from the World Cup's qualifying competition by the tournament's organising committee after refusing to honour an agreement reached with FIFA in February.

Before Friday's decision, Ethiopia had been third in their four-team qualifying group behind Rwanda and Morocco and ahead of Mauritania.

FIFA said the group table would now be amended with all the matches played by Ethiopia wiped from the standings.

Ethiopia were suspended from international competition in July after failing to reinstate the federation leaders officially recognised by FIFA.

The suspension led to the cancellation of the country's scheduled World Cup qualifier against Morocco five days ago.