In a letter to FIFA President Sepp Blatter, a group of cross-party, cross-nationality members of the European Parliament urged him to reconsider Iran's participation in the World Cup this summer after remarks made by the country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israel and the Holocaust.

The letter was released on Wednesday during the plenary session of the Parliament in Strasbourg.

Iran is due to kick off its World Cup campaign against Mexico in Nuremberg on 11 June with further group games against Portugal and Angola.

The presence of the Iranian team has caused controversy due to the rumoured attendance of Ahmadinejad at the World Cup which starts on 9 June in Germany.

Ahmadinejad has provoked international outcry by calling for the state of Israel to be “wiped off the map”, and describing the Holocaust as a “myth”.

He is also defying the international community and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) rules on nuclear proliferation.

Strong message needed

According to Chris Heaton-Harris, a conservative MEP for the East Midlands, who initiated the letter, "we need to send a strong message that President Ahmadinejad's attitudes towards the international community and towards Israel are unacceptable.

FIFA : sport and not politics

On Tuesday FIFA, the world football federation, refused to become embroiled in the row about whether Iran should be kicked out of the World Cup. It said the organisation was a sporting one and not political. A FIFA statement said the organisation was a sporting one and not political. "For these reasons FIFA will not involve itself in political discussions nor address calls for any team to be prevented from participating at the 2006 World Cup in Germany," it said. "The 32 qualified teams are representatives of their respective football associations which are by statutory regulations independent organisations that cannot be held responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their respective governmental officials. "It is important to emphasise that views and opinions expressed by political officials must be addressed at the appropriate political and diplomatic level by the relevant institutions (ie the United Nations and European Union) and that football cannot precede action in the political arena - to do so would be detrimental to sport and would not be conducive to solving issues at hand in the political landscape."

“The current situation of trying to ban him personally is merely gifting him free publicity and enhancing his stature,” he added in a press release.

"Banning the Iranian football team would make it clear that President Ahmadinejad's behaviour is detrimental to Iran's progress, and is harming the nation's integration into the international community, including the sporting community,” Heaton-Harris, a qualified referee and chairman of the European Parliament's 'Friends of Football' group, said.

"Sporting boycotts have a history of positive outcomes, and this ban would be a clear signal that we are not willing to be bullied by this man's attempts to use a celebration of football as his own propaganda tool

"South Africa is the most famous example of a successful sporting boycott. In four years' time, they will not only be participating in the World Cup, they will be hosting it. We hope one day Iran will experience this too, but we must send a firm message that progress like this is impossible whilst Mr Ahmadinejad behaves in the way he has done."

The letter to FIFA’s president asks that Bahrain, also an Islamic nation, should be the team to benefit from Iran's exclusion, as they finished runners-up to Iran during the qualifying campaign.

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The Letter to Mr. Blatter

“This reinforces the message that the letter cannot be interpreted as anti-Islamic, merely as a response to the policies and actions of Mr Ahmadinejad,” the MEPs said.

In 1992, Denmark replaced the former Yugoslavia in the football European Championships in Sweden after it was expelled from the competition and the 1994 World Cup qualifiers as part of United Nations (UN) sanctions relating to the Balkans War.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would not seek to ban Iran from the World Cup finals, which kick off on June 9.