Under the current league set-up, the move would leave the ISL with just four operating teams.

BBC: Sport Online's Stuart Hughes

He has argued that Cardiff's current home - the 2, 700 seat Wales National Ice Rink - is too small to sustain an ISL side.

BBC: Cardiff set for league comedown

But since Bob Phillips has a five-year lease on the Wales National Ice Rink, anyone prepared to finance an ISL side would have nowhere to play.

BBC: Cardiff set for league comedown

"The acceptance of bribe money by Havelange, Teixeira and Leoz was not punishable under Swiss criminal law at that time, " explained Eckert in his report into the FIFA-ISL case.

CNN: FIFA 'bribe' officials escape punishment

"At the end of the day if we hadn't accepted it and nobody came in for the ISL franchise then there might not have been senior ice hockey in Cardiff, " he said.

BBC: Cardiff set for league comedown

In the report, FIFA ethics court judge Hans-Joachim Eckert wrote that the bribes amounted to millions of dollars' worth of "commission payments" from ISL Group, an agency that marketed media rights for Switzerland-based FIFA before going bankrupt in 2001.

WSJ: Report Concludes Havelange Took Bribes