Prime Minister Youth Program and Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee agreed on cooperation to promote football in Pakistan.
The development came when the delegation of the PFF Normalization Committee met with the Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima Khawaja in a two-day 2 session long meeting in Islamabad.
Chairman Haroon Malik, NC member Shahid Niaz Khokhar, star footballer Malika Noor and other PFF officials including Ali Akram, Aveen Zaman, Mahnoor Ghalib, Mehreen was part of the delegation.
The Prime Minister Youth Program (PMYP) has already engaged the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for this program. At the beginning of the meeting, the representatives of HEC gave a briefing to the participants about the program.
The matters pertaining to domestic competitions also came under discussion. It was also decided to work with the support of PFF under the Prime Minister’s Youth Program for the promotion of football in Pakistan.
On the occasion, the NC chairman told the PMYP Chair, “From the very first of our appointment as PFF Normalisation Committee, we are striving for the betterment of football in Pakistan. The world’s most popular game has been getting back to track gradually. After 8 years, our women’s team played an international event and beat Maldives by 7-0 which was, no doubt, a tremendous effort by the girls in green. The men’s team is going to take on hosts Nepal in mid-November where they will play some friendlies with them.
“The six-week first training phase of the men was completed in Lahore, where they were trained according to international standards and learned new things under the supervision of a Brazilian coach and trainer. We are going to organize domestic events, which will be beneficial for the players to further shine their skill at a national level while officials will get ample opportunities to officiate matches,” he stated.
He also revealed that the club scrutiny process is going to start and added: “We have got an overwhelming response from the club associations and more than 4000 clubs have registered themselves on FIFA Connect Program. We are fully focused on elections now which is our top priority and one of the key mandates of FIFA. I am very hopeful that the PFF elections will be held in a fair and transparent manner, where the genuine stakeholders will get the chance to run the affairs of Pakistan football,” he asserted.
Published in The Nation, 21 October 2022