NEW YORK (AFP) - North American regional football officials have ended an agreement made in 1991 that allowed for team exchanges with South America for continental football championships.

Chuck Blazer, competition committee chairman for the Confederation of North, Central and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), revealed the break-up on Tuesday in announcing the 12-team lineup for June's CONCACAF Gold Cup event.

US and Mexican teams invited to this year's Copa America, the South American (CONMEBOL) championship, were allowed to participate after having already been announced and promoted as part of the event in Venezuela, Blazer said.

The North American Gold Cup figures to be diminished without the presence of costlier but generally higher-ranked South American squads compared to a field that now includes the unrated French Caribbean island of Guadaloupe.

"The event has risen to the level where it does very much stand on its own as a continental championship," Blazer said.

"We felt this configuration would give us the best competition, everyone playing for real and playing for the right purpose."

But any future North American participation in Copa America is on hold.

"This agreement has ended with this competition since we have no South American teams in the (Gold Cup) competition," Blazer said.

"It's not our intention for the program to go forward the way it was. We will sit down with our friends to see what is the best way we can go forward.

"Since 1991 it's a different world and agreements will reflect this in the future."

That probably means a dispute over money. Brazil, the 2003 Gold Cup runner-up, was portrayed by US businessman Blazer as too costly.

"The commercial aspects of what it takes to bring Brazil to an event have changed so much that it makes it impossible in this day and age," he said. "We think we will end up with the best competition this way."

The Gold Cup draw is far from a blind allocation of teams and the event has been staged in mostly US markets. Organizers send teams to venues where they expect the most attendance since it produces 70 percent of CONCACAF's budget.

"All we're doing is not leaving that (attendance factor) to chance," Blazer said. "We keep these so that they are competitively balanced. We end up with a more balanced team doing it this way than if we did a blind draw.

"I consider this a very real tournament. The team that wins it wins it because of how they play not because they got some benefit."

This year, Mexico will play two first-round matches near New York rather than its usual Los Angeles area appearances.

"I guess a surprise is a good thing for us every once in a while," Blazer said. "We thought it would be a very positive change."

Cuba, Blazer said, was kept from Miami for competitive balance reasons rather than political ones, given that Haiti was the Caribbean champion and seen as Miami's top draw.

Blazer said he had not been contacted by Trinidad and Tobago officials about a possible Gold Cup pullout.

"If something like that had happened, I think they would have notified us," Blazer said.