FIFA president postpones visit to Cuba

HAVANA, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- The president of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), Joseph Blatter, postponed a scheduled visit to Cuba at the end of October to sometime in early 2013, a Cuban sports official said Tuesday.

FIFA said the trip was postponed due to "sports politics" related to the organization of the 2014 World Cup games in Brazil, according to Luis Enrique Yero, secretary of the Cuban Football Association.

Blatter was expected to be in Havana Oct. 25 as part of a Caribbean tour that also included Barbados, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

FIFA's top official was going to preside over the laying of the cornerstone of Havana's first synthetic-grass soccer field at La Polar Stadium, where contruction is to begin in January.

Blatter has been to Cuba once before, in November 2000. Enditem