LA PAZ, June 6 - Soccer chiefs and mayors from Andean countries met in Bolivia on Wednesday to protest at FIFA's ban on high-altitude matches, with President Evo Morales calling the measure absurd.

The world governing body banned international games over 8,200 feet (2,500 metres) last month. It said playing in the oxygen-thin air of high-altitude stadiums was a health hazard and distorted fair competition.

Bolivian leader Morales, a keen soccer fan, is leading efforts to get the ban overturned. Opening Wednesday's protest summit in a hotel in the Andean city of La Paz, he said FIFA's measure amounted to "discrimination and exclusion."

"The Andean countries, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, unite our voices to ask our brothers in Latin America to accompany us in this crusade against this absurd ban," Morales said.

Because of the ban, five South American nations will be unable to host international games in some of their largest cities. The Organisation of American States called on FIFA on Tuesday to reconsider the step.

The mayors of the three South American capitals affected by the measure -- La Paz, the Colombian capital Bogota and the Ecuadorean capital Quito -- attended Wednesday's meeting.

Representatives of the Peruvian city of Cuzco and the Chilean town of Calama, which also lie above the limit, also took part.

A presidential spokesman said sports ministers from Venezuela and Ecuador, as well as the mayors of about 100 Bolivian towns, had also confirmed their attendance.