The 27-year-old striker cannot don the red shirt until he fulfils its new five-year residency requirement in January 2010.

The ruling effectively means Qiu Li, who arrived in Singapore in 2005 to play for the now-defunct S-League side Sinchi FC, is out of next month's Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup.

But the FAS believes that the world governing body is wrong in retroactively declaring the China-born striker ineligible.

FAS general secretary Winston Lee said yesterday: 'We are very disappointed with this outcome. We had requested Fifa not to retroactively declare Qiu Li ineligible to represent Singapore.

'We felt that even though Qiu Li had not represented Singapore in a game in an official competition, he had represented Singapore in a competitive Fifa-sanctioned friendly against Bahrain before the new rules kicked in.

'Moreover, the AFC had earlier confirmed that Qiu Li was eligible to represent Singapore in the World Cup qualifiers in June 2008.'

At the heart of the dispute is Qiu Li's international debut against Bahrain on May28.

On May 30, Fifa, following its congress in Sydney, issued a circular entitled 'Eligibility to play for representative teams' to all member countries.

In essence, it ruled that a player who has assumed a new nationality, and who has not played international football, can represent his new team only if he has lived continuously in that new country for at least five years after reaching the age of 18.

The previous residency requirement was two years.

Singapore's problem is that Fifa does not consider the friendly against Bahrain an official competitive fixture, even though world ranking points were up for grabs.

Thus, Qiu Li is not considered to have played 'international football' before May 30.

If Fifa had accepted that Qiu Li had made his Singapore debut on May 28, then only the previous two-year residency requirement would have applied.

According to the FAS, Qiu Li had also received the green light from both Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation to play against Bahrain and June's World Cup qualifiers. He has since collected four caps for Singapore.

Singapore coach Raddy Avramovic said: 'This is very confusing. What I do not understand is how in May, the AFC had confirmed his eligibility and now in November, they are denying his eligibility based on a technicality.'

It was the AFC that retroactively enforced the Fifa ruling when it stopped the player from appearing in a friendly against Vietnam in Hanoi last month.

This is the fourth blow the Lions have suffered even before the Suzuki Cup commences on Dec 5 with the defending champions' match against Cambodia.

They had already lost Khairul Amri (broken metatarsal), Hariss Harun and Fazrul Nawaz (both torn knee ligaments).

Qiu Li had been expected to be an important part of Avramovic's plans for the Suzuki Cup. His versatility would have given the Serb a wealth of options in the centre-forward, wide midfield and central attacking midfield positions.

The Shenyang-born player, who has been given 20 days off to take his mind off football, was also the team's main free-kick taker after Amri's withdrawal.

Avramovic lamented: 'He means a lot to this team.'

A devastated Qiu Li said in a statement: 'I'm very sad that I will not be with the team to defend our title.

'However, even though I will not be there, my heart will be with the boys and I'm confident they will do well. I'll continue to train hard and I look forward to representing Singapore again.'

Yesterday, the forward bade his international colleagues an emotional farewell at the team's base in Amara Hotel.

Striker Noh Alam Shah said: 'Although he's not born here, the team have always regarded Qiu Li as one of us.

'He impressed us with his hard work even though he had this question mark of eligibility hanging over his head.

'We are now determined to honour Qiu Li and our other injured team-mates by winning the Suzuki Cup for them.'

As a show of unity, the squad of 22 huddled together and shouted 'Majulah' before sending Qiu Li off at the hotel door.

Singapore Armed Forces FC winger Mustaqim Manzur has been called up as Qiu Li's replacement.

meng@sph.com.sg