PFF confirms contact with AIFF over Pakistan, India football friendlies
PFF confirms contact with AIFF over Pakistan, India football friendlies
Karachi: Haroon Malik, the chairman of Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalisation Committee, on Saturday confirmed that they are in contact with All India Football Federation (AIFF) and other Asian countries to play international friendlies with the Pakistan football team.
In an exclusive interview to Geo Super, Haroon said that PFF’s Normalisation Committee (NC) has chalked out plans to maximize the playing time for the players of its men’s and women’s team and has contacted all the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) member countries.
“We have contacted all members association of AFC, including India, requesting them for friendlies,” he said. “We are reaching out to our friendly countries as well. We are ready to host the matches and to tour, we are also open for reciprocal games. The Idea is to provide maximum playing opportunity to our senior men’s and women’s team.”
The NC chairman added that sports should be kept away from politics as playing with India will help our players improve. “It is beyond politics. We have written to all countries including India,” he said. “For our players, it will be beneficial to play a better ranked Indian team. We can always learn from playing against a top team. India is much bigger than we are in terms of federation size as well, so we can also learn from them there.”
Haroon said that Pakistan’s current FIFA ranking doesn’t reflect country’s potential in football and there’s no reason why Pakistan can’t be among better ranked countries.
“We can get to a fairly better position than where we are right now,” he said. “If we see our neighbors, one country is in 150s, the other one is 102 and another one is in 40s, I see no reason why can’t we improve our ranking.
“It is a gradual process as you earn points by playing matches. Our players have potential, the only issue is of providing opportunities, and we will ensure that happens.”
Read: PFF confirms Pakistan’s participation in SAFF Cup
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