After weeks of uncertainty, the Pakistan football team is set to compete at the SAFF Championships in Bengaluru, having received visas to travel to India.
“Yes, we have received visas to travel to India. Now we are looking to book the earliest route to India,” said Shahid Khokhar, a member of the Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee, which has been running the federation since it was suspended by FIFA in 2021.
Pakistan is set to play the host in the opener on Wednesday evening, the first encounter between the two sides since September 2018, when India beat its neighbour 3-1 in the semifinal of the 12th SAFF Cup in Dhaka.
Concerns had earlier been raised over whether Pakistan would be able to travel to India following a delay in procuring ‘No Objection’ certificates from the Ministry of Internal Affairs as well as the Pakistan Sports Board.
The Pakistan Football Federation applied for an NOC on May 25. Following a delay in the granting of the NOC, the Federation had taken to Twitter as well.
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“Hi @mo_ipc @SportsBoardPak. Would love it if you can provide us with an update on the NOC for the SAFF Championships which are all set to start in India on the 21st. We plan to travel on the 18th. Hoping to get the clearance so that we can manage things accordingly.” the tweet from PFF read.
The PFF also issued a video in which the players asked the PSB and the foreign office to expedite the process of awarding NOCs. “This is very important. We request the Pakistan Foreign Ministry and Pakistan Sports Board to provide us with a NOC so that we can focus on training and not on other things,” defender Mamoon Moosa said in a video posted by the Twitter handle of the PFF.
Last Thursday, PFF was granted the NOC by its Ministry of Internal Affairs and Pakistan Sports Board, following which it applied for the visas.
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“I would like to thank (AIFF general secretary) Shaji Prabhakaran and (AIFF president) Kalyan Choubey for doing so much from their end. It was thanks to them that we got the visa as quickly as we did. Normally, you get an Indian visa in person only, but we were able to get the visa in Mauritius (where the Pakistan team is playing a four-nation tournament). This allows us to travel directly to India and not have to fly back to Pakistan,” Khokhar says.
However with just a couple of days in which the Pakistan football team will have to travel and then prepare for the highly anticipated clash with the host, Khokhar wondered if it was possible for the opening tie to be rescheduled.
“I know it is very unlikely, but I humbly request the organisers to see if it is possible to reschedule our opening tie since our players will only arrive in India a short while before their opening match,” Khokhar told Sportstar.
Pakistan hasn’t featured in only two of the 13 editions of the SAFF Football Championship held so far since 1993. The PFF could not send its team to the 2015 edition in India due to internal issues. The country missed the 2021 edition in the Maldives as it was serving a suspension from FIFA.
The suspension was only lifted in June of last year.
India is the highest-ranked team at the SAFF Championship (No. 101), while Pakistan is the lowest ranked (No. 195) in the FIFA rankings.
Pakistan, however, is hoping for a strong performance since it’s been bolstered by a number of foreign-born players, including former England U-20 captain Easah Suliman.
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