Wales' Euro 2004 qualifying campaign has been thrown into turmoil after Fifa announced a ban on the Azerbaijan federation.

The game's world governing body have suspended the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan following repeated violations of Fifa's code of conduct. Football in the country has been in chaos since they signed an agreement with Fifa last September, because of a row between league clubs and the AFFA.

The domestic championship was abandoned as a result and the leading clubs have prevented their players from playing for the national team. The Fifa ruling threatens to stop Azerbaijan from playing international matches, including Euro 2004 qualifying games.

Wales have played Azerbaijan twice, winning 2-0 away and 4-0 in Cardiff. But, if Azerbaijan are thrown out of the competition and their results expunged, that could see Wales lose six points and a plus-six goal difference. -lose only a point from

Azerbaijan's next qualifier is the return against Serbia, scheduled for 11 June at a venue to be decided. But Rob Faulkner, a spokesman for Uefa, the governing body of the game in Europe, said it was too early to speculate about whether the game would go ahead. Faulkner said that the scrubbing of Azerbaijan's results would appear "the most logical course" should they not be able to complete their fixtures, but stressed there was plenty of time for a less drastic solution to be found.

Georgia must play a match behind closed doors as a result of a knife being thrown on to the pitch during the Republic of Ireland's visit to Tbilisi.

Uefa ordered the punishment after crowd trouble which saw missiles hurled from the stands and the Irish midfielder Kevin Kilbane hit by an open pen-knife. The penalty will apply to Georgia's Euro 2004 qualifier against Russia on 30 April.