Former Football Association of Singapore (FAS) president Zainudin Nordin will not pursue his bid for a seat on football world governing body Fifa.

A media statement by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) yesterday confirmed that eight candidates from Asia - four male and four female - will contest four Fifa council seats available to the AFC. At least one of the seats must be filled by a woman.

Despite having declared he would run for the council last June, Zainudin was not on the list of the four male candidates who submitted their names for the election at the AFC Congress in Bahrain on May 7.

The male candidates are: Zhang Jian (China), Chung Mong Gyu (South Korea), Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah (Kuwait) and Mariano Araneta Jr (Philippines).

Zainudin did not return calls or text messages last night.

He was initially given the green light to run for the Fifa Council by the AFC last June.

However, at an AFC Extraordinary Congress in Goa, India last September, when the elections to the Fifa Council were initially to be held, the AFC member countries voted 42-1 against the agenda, and the congress was called off.

The decision to boycott the congress came after Fifa barred a Qatari candidate from running for a spot on the council two days before the election. Singapore was the only member to vote in favour of the agenda. Following the boycott, the elections were postponed to May.

Zainudin was FAS president from 2009 to last November, and had also served as a council member on the Asean Football Federation.

Chia Han Keong