Fifa's emergency committee has today suspended European champions Greece and its member clubs from international competition because of government interference in the sport.

The decision means the Hellenic Football Federation (Greek FA) and all their clubs, players and officials are suspended with immediate effect and until further notice from all international competition.

A Fifa statement read: "The emergency committee, made up of five presidents and one representative of each of the six confederations, decided the HFF are not in line with the principles of the Fifa statutes regarding the independence of member associations and the independence of the decision-making process of the football-governing body in each country."

It continued: "In September 2005, the executive committee gave the HFF a deadline of July 15th, 2006, to obtain from the Greek government an amendment to the national law on sports in order to enable the association to be in conformity with the Fifa statutes and the relevant Uefa regulations.

"In spite of repeated warnings from both Fifa and Uefa, the commitment expressed by Greek government representatives to amend the law on sport to irrevocably recognise that football matters can only be decided by the HFF and its subordinated football structures has not been respected.

"In fact, the recently-presented draft of a new law on professional leagues constitutes another example of interference from the government in football affairs. Therefore, the emergency committee has determined that the deadline would not be met by the HFF and that the suspension of this federation was necessary."

Both Fifa and Uefa have expressed concerns about how discrepancies between national law and the HFF statutes have been referred to ordinary courts of law, which is prohibited by Fifa.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter held an emergency meeting with HFF president Vassilis Gagatsis on June 20th to discuss the situation. The meeting was also attended by HFF CEO Patrick Comninos and Fifa deputy general secretary Jerome Champagne.

The ruling appears to cast doubt over Steve McClaren's first match as England manager, which was due to have been a friendly against Greece at Old Trafford on Wednesday, August 16th.  Agencies