MUMBAI: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has confirmed talks with the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and other Asian countries to schedule friendly matches.
Haroon Malik, chairman of the PFF normalisation committee, told Geo Super that plans have been chalked out to maximize the playing time for the players of its men’s and women’s teams and towards that end has contacted all the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) member countries.
“We have contacted all member associations of AFC, including India, requesting them for friendlies,” he told the channel. “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 teams.”
Malik argued 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 we 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.”
