Without FIFA's stamp of approval, a national federation can't form a national team to compete in the World Cup.
As we drove along the 10th fairway, Lendl recalled that Miami is the first place he visited in America, when the Czech tennis federation sent him as a 15-year-old to compete in the Orange Bowl.
Makhloufi had made it known that he did not want to compete in the 800m but, due to an administrative error on the part of his federation, he was not withdrawn from the heats.
Some national federations were shortening athletes' suspensions so they could compete in the Olympics, he said, which the I.O.C. considered wrong.
Allan Steinfeld, a longtime New York Road Runners executive, recalls being told by Japanese federation leaders in the 1980s that Japanese runners would not compete in the New York race because it could not be broadcast live in Japan at a reasonable hour.
Even if he did need permission, Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, would probably intervene with the Moroccan federation, given his stated determination to have the world's best athletes compete in the Olympics.
The French athletics federation has cleared the middle-distance runners Mehdi Baala and Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad to compete in the world championships.
Britain will not compete in the Olympic soccer tournament next summer in Rio de Janeiro after the English Football Assn. said Tuesday it was unable to reach an agreement with the other three federations that comprise Great Britain.
The Asian federation's criteria for competing in the Champions League, which include other factors like the quality of stadiums and marketing, can be especially difficult for small nations, which struggle to draw enough fans and quality homegrown athletes to sustain leagues that can compete at international levels.
There are 53 countries in the Commonwealth and 71 nations and territories competing in the games, a discrepancy explained by "precedent and history", according to the federation's head of communications, Peter Murphy.
