The alleged father of the little girl Madonna is to adopt has given up the fight to keep her in Malawi.

Madonna won her appeal to adopt four-year-old Mercy James last Friday after her initial bid in April was rejected.

At the time, James Kambewa, who claims to be the little girl's biological father, launched a legal bid in the hope of getting his daughter back.

He also called the Material Girl "scandalous" and unfit to bring up the child.

But Kambewa has now ended his battle to keep the child in her homeland and has wished Madonna all the best.

He said: "Truly, I wish her well, but I only ask Madonna to look after my daughter properly. She must grow knowing that her father still lives in Malawi."

Kambewa, who has never seen the child apart from in newspaper pictures, was branded an "opportunist" by Mercy's relatives who claimed he had left her to be brought up in an orphanage after her mother died.