The AFC were due to appoint their Council members at the Congress in Goa but the meeting was abandoned when the governing body’s electorate voted against the agenda.

The Extraordinary Congress in Goa lasted less than half-an-hour, with 42 of the voting 44 members raising a "No" card when President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa called for the agenda to be approved.

It appeared to be a show of defiance from the AFC after FIFA had banned Qatar Football Association vice-president Saoud Al-Mohannadi from standing for one of the available positions due to an ongoing Ethics Committee investigation on the eve of the vote.

Al-Mohannadi, alleged to have committed a series of ethics breaches, including duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting and general obligation to collaborate with an investigation, was considered one of the favourites.

He denies any wrongdoing.

As a result, elections for the AFC’s three additional seats on the expanded Council, which replaced the Executive Committee under reforms initiated in the wake of FIFA’s corruption crisis, had to be called off.

"The Asian Football Confederation Extraordinary Congress will be held on February 28, 2017, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia," the AFC said in a statement.

"The AFC has informed its member associations about the new date."

It is not yet clear, however, whether the same candidates will stand in the rescheduled elections.

FIFA Taskforce for Women’s Football chair Moya Dodd of Australia, a co-opted member of the Executive Committee, was due to go up against AFC Executive Committee members Mahfuza Ahkter of Bangladesh and Han Un-Gyong of North Korea for the position of the AFC's female representative on the Council.

Iran's Ali Kafashian Naeni, Chinese Football Association secretary general Zhang Jian and AFC Governance Reform Taskforce member Zainudin Nordin of Singapore were bidding for the other two available slots for Asia.

The FIFA Council held what was supposed to be its first full meeting at the home of world football’s governing body in Zurich last month, where they agreed to look into the prospect of growing the World Cup from to 40 or 48 teams from the 2026 edition of the quadrennial showpiece.

The proposals, which have been spearheaded by Infantino, are due be discussed at the next meeting of the FIFA Council on January 9, where a decision will be taken by the organisation’s leaders.

The AFC’s additional Council representatives will not have a say in the decision as they will not have been elected yet but the body is hopeful they will be in place for the next FIFA Congress in Manama in Bahrain on May 11.