LAHORE - Pakistan’s national football women and men teams, Normalisation Committee Chairman Haroon Malik and NC members met President Dr Arif Alvi at Aiwan-e-Sadr, Islamabad.
President Arif Alvi, while appreciating the performance of the national women’s team, who remained runners-up in the Four-Nation Football Tournament in Saudi Arabia, said that the players should work harder to make the country proud. “Football is very popular in Pakistan. There is a need to adopt international standards for promotion of this game in the country so that the encouragement of footballers should be continued. Links with international partners and public-private partnerships are vital for uplift of the game in the country.
“Unfortunately, the internal politics of 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 NC, there will be a clear improvement in the performance of the federation,” Dr Alvi added.
On the occasion, Chairman NC Haroon 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. Now the men’s team will participate in the FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers while the women’s team will feature in the qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympics,” Haroon added.
