By Rob Miech
SportsLine Staff Writer

LOS ANGELES -- In a gesture to symbolize the unified building of a strong foundation for future success, FIFA president Sepp Blatter doled out small bricks to each delegate of the organization's member nations at Friday's annual congress.

Then he promptly had those bricks tossed back at him, figuratively, by about 100 delegates from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), who walked out of the meeting in protest of the slots for the 2002 World Cup.

It's the first time that has happened in FIFA's 95-year history.

South Korea and Japan are scheduled to co-host the quadrennial World Cup, and the AFC has 4 1/2 of the 32 berths after Europe donated half of one of its 15 allocations to the AFC cause earlier in the week.

But South America declined to yield half of one of its 4 1/2 places to the AFC, which drew the ire of the AFC and ignited Friday's unprecedented walkout.

"A bombshell," said FIFA director of communications Keith Cooper.

"It's a disgrace," Blatter said. "I'm very unhappy. More than that, I'm ashamed. That showed no respect to our institution called FIFA. It's like a family, and when you're part of a family you don't leave the table before dinner is served. It's the same way with the FIFA family.

"I have to tell you that this took us a little bit by surprise. It's such a disgrace. This is absolutely unheard of. This is potentially a major crisis for FIFA. An institution cannot give in to that kind of pressure, or there will be a free-for-all and it (FIFA) will die."

BLATTER WILL ATTEND SATURDAY'S Women's World Cup Final between the U.S. team and China at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., then retreat to the headquarters of FIFA, the sport's global governing body, in Zurich, Switzerland.

For a week or two, he envisions poring over the organization's statutes and guidelines, but he will find no guidelines for dealing with or reacting to Friday's walkout and the threatened boycott of the 2002 World Cup by the AFC's members.

Blatter said he hopes to calm AFC president Sultan Ahmad Shah of Malaysia and his cronies into returning as active and influential FIFA members.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines general secretary Earl Bennett said FIFA should not rule out punishing the AFC with severe sanctions, including possibly taking away the 2002 World Cup from South Korea and Japan.

"An unprecedented action," Bennett said, "calls for an unprecedented reaction."

ACTUALLY, THERE IS PRECEDENCE FOR yanking a World Cup away from a country. Colombia had been tabbed as the 1986 host city until president Joao Havelange shifted gears and instead granted it to a more-peaceful and better-prepared Mexico.

If a chunk of the AFC chooses to boycott, that also won't set a precedent. In 1966, only North Korea decided not to join the rest of an African and Asian block that walked out in protest of the region getting only one representative.

All the Koreans had to do to qualify for the England tournament was defeat Australia in a two-game playoff in Cambodia. North Korea won by a 9-2 aggregate score. Then it advanced to the quarterfinals, losing to Portugal in Everton.

The precedent was set Friday morning, when, during roll call, the 100 or so AFC representatives stood up and walked out of a ballroom at the Century Plaza Hotel.

THE MEETING WAS BILLED AS the "Extraordinary FIFA Congress," attended by about 600 delegates from its 203 affiliated members. Blatter chuckled about the designation early Friday afternoon.

"It was an extraordinary congress," Blatter said. "The Asian members stood up and ran away."

What chafed Blatter most about their actions was the extraordinary nature in which the pecking order and proper channels were violated. Such a scene might be tolerated at the national or confederation level, not at a convention of global order.

"I was disappointed," Bennett said. "It's an indictment against the FIFA family. It hurts me, because I'm a part of the family. They (the AFC delegates) wanted something, and they did not get it. And there was nothing illegal about it."

BECAUSE FIFA'S EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, not the congress, is in charge of the World Cup berths, the AFC had no immediate reaction after FIFA's 21-member executive committee designated its 32 World Cup spots on Dec. 4, 1998, in Zurich.

That committee allocated 15 places to Europe for the 2002 World Cup. Africa received five spots; South America got four or five (depending on a playoff with a team from Oceania); North and Central America, and the Caribbean region three; Asia got four.

South Korea and Japan, as hosts, took two of Asia's berths. That's where the conflict occurred, because the AFC felt those two countries should have been treated as a single entity, allowing a fifth AFC member into the picture.

But immediately after the executive committee unveiled its plan, only Australia, whose path to the World Cup shifted from Asia to South America, voiced some dissent. It wasn't until the middle of December, at the Asian Games in Bangkok, that the AFC took note of the ramifications of the berth dispersal.

Sheik Ahmad al-Sabah, the chairman of the Kuwait Football Federation and president of the Olympic Council of Asia, said the AFC had been treated "shabbily." He called for the boycott of the 2002 World Cup by the AFC's 45 members, including Japan and South Korea.

AFC general secretary Peter Velappan said FIFA's decision to have 43 nations battle for two World Cup spots was "criminal."

WHERE WOULD THAT FIFTH SLOT come from? Blatter said he spoke with one high-level AFC official on Thursday who was appeased that Europe acquiesced to give up one of its spots in a playoff between one of its countries and an AFC nation.

Apparently, that wasn't good enough.

Had South America also acquiesced, as the AFC hoped, then the AFC would have been assured of a fifth World Cup entrant (combining the half from Europe and the other one from South America).

Thus, the playoff would have shifted to involve European and South American national sides.

South America said no.

Blatter said he started getting irritated with the AFC officials Tuesday. After Europe obliged the AFC with a half of one of its spots, the AFC delegates thanked nobody. Instead, they shifted their pressure onto South America.

"No generosity," said Blatter, who is galled to no end that the AFC is so ungrateful after FIFA set its precedent in 1996 by rewarding the region with its first World Cup competition. "What can I do? They (the AFC personnel) were all stubborn. I don't like it."

Moreover, FIFA invites up to three delegates of each of its member nations to attend the congress. The AFC personnel, who walked out on him on Friday, have their extravagant hotel and dining bills paid for by FIFA. They would have caused less of a furor by individually walking up to Blatter and throwing a glass of water in his face.

"Is that polite?" Blatter said.

NOW BLATTER GOES TO WORK to find out who led Friday's uprising and to get the AFC back into his family. He will also mull sanctions and other punishment in Zurich over the next 10 days.

Meanwhile, England, Germany and South Africa will wait for about a year to learn who FIFA will pick as the 2006 World Cup host.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter's pleas do not work Friday, as Asian delegates walk out of meetings.(AP)

Bennett, the representative of St. Thomas and the Grenadines, said FIFA should react with a swift backhand and award England or Germany the 2002 World Cup. Both of those nations have the arenas and personnel to pull off a successful tournament, and then South Africa could still have a few years to prepare its infrastructure for such an event.

That way, two of those three would be pleased. And the AFC, whose game is already viewed as suspect in many areas of the world, would spiral from missing out on the financial windfall that hosting a World Cup ensures and the negative publicity generated by its boycott.

"I recommend strong disciplinary action," Bennett said. "I wouldn't rule out the possibility of taking the World Cup away from Asia and giving it to someone else. That was going through my mind earlier today."

Blatter signed and numbered each of his tiny give-away bricks, which had "Make the game better ... " on the left, both halves of the globe and FIFA in the middle with " ... and take it to the world" on the right.

He felt some solace from watching most of the AFC delegates walk out of the ballroom on Friday morning with their bricks in their hands.

"So it's possible that they'll come back," Blatter said, "and bring their bricks with them."