Football: Join the camp or sit at home, says Lutfi

Pakistan football coach makes priorities clear ahead of SAFF Cup.

KARACHI: Doubts surrounding composition of the Pakistan team for the upcoming Saff Cup seem to be clearing after four foreign players invited for the camp failed to report to the country’s football federation.

The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), which included foreign players in all their international assignments – Olympic and World Cup qualifiers and the AFC Challenge Cup – this year, are likely to prefer locals after foreign players Atif Bashir, Zesh Rehman, Adnan Farooq and Shabbir Hassan failed to confirm their availability for the training camp that starts on October 29.

Coach Tariq Lutfi was adamant on not including the four players if they did not report on the first day of the training camp and added that they had not made any difference to the team and he intends to form a team consisting of under-23 footballers.

However, the PFF Secretary Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi gave out a different impression.

“We partially agree with Lutfi,” Lodhi told The Express Tribune. “It’s fair to exclude them if they skip the camp but if they join at least three weeks before the tournament, we can include them. The idea is for both groups to gel and that will only happen when they spend some time in the camp.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2011.