ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Football Teams of Men and Women, Normalisation Committee Chairman Haroon Malik and NC members met with President Dr Arif Alvi at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad. President Arif Alvi, while appreciating the performance of the national women’s team, who remained runner-up in the Four-Nations Tournament in Saudi Arabia, said that the players should work very hard to make the country proud with their performances.
“Football is very popular in Pakistan. There is a need to adopt international standards for the promotion of this game in the country so that encouragement of footballers should be continued. Links with international partners and public-private partnerships are very important for the uplift of the game in the country.
“Unfortunately, the internal politics of the Pakistan Football Federation affected the performance of the national teams. The FIFA’s designated Normalization Committee should step up its efforts to resolve issues related to football matters in the country and I hope that with the help of the Normalization Committee, there will be a clear improvement in the performance of the federation,” the President added.
On the occasion, Chairman Normalization Committee Haroon Ahmed Malik said that more than seven million people play football in Pakistan. “Efforts are being made to improve the system of the federation, and so far about 4600 clubs have been registered from 163 districts of the country.
“The process of document verification and physical scrutiny will be completed in a due course of time. Pakistan Women’s team participated in their first international event after 8 years while Men’s team played their first international match after 4 years,” Haroon added.
Talking about the upcoming assignments of the team, the NC Chairman said that the men’s team will participate in the FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers and the Women’s team will participate in the qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
