Two days before clash with India, Pakistan football team receives visa

Representative picture of Pakistan followers.
| Photo Credit: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

After weeks of uncertainty, the Pakistan soccer workforce is about to compete on the SAFF Championships in Bengaluru, having obtained visas to journey to India.

“Yes, we have received visas to travel to India. Now we are looking to book the earliest route to India,” mentioned Shahid Khokhar, a member of the Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee, which has been working the federation because it was suspended by FIFA in 2021.

Pakistan is about to play the host within the opener on Wednesday night, the primary encounter between the 2 sides since September 2018, when India beat its neighbour 3-1 within the semifinal of the twelfth SAFF Cup in Dhaka.

Concerns had earlier been raised over whether or not Pakistan would be capable to journey to India following a delay in procuring ‘No Objection’ certificates from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in addition to the Pakistan Sports Board.

The Pakistan Football Federation utilized for an NOC on May 25. Following a delay within the granting of the NOC, the Federation had taken to Twitter as properly.

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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 learn.

The PFF additionally issued a video by which the gamers requested the PSB and the overseas workplace to expedite the method 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 mentioned in a video posted by the Twitter deal with of the PFF.

Last Thursday, PFF was granted the NOC by its Ministry of Internal Affairs and Pakistan Sports Board, following which it utilized 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 simply a few days by which the Pakistan soccer workforce must journey after which put together for the extremely anticipated conflict with the host, Khokhar puzzled if it was attainable 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 advised Sportstar.

Pakistan hasn’t featured in solely two of the 13 editions of the SAFF Football Championship held to date since 1993. The PFF couldn’t ship its workforce to the 2015 version in India as a result of inner points. The nation missed the 2021 version within the Maldives because it was serving a suspension from FIFA.

The suspension was solely lifted in June of final yr.

India is the highest-ranked workforce on the SAFF Championship (No. 101), whereas Pakistan is the bottom ranked (No. 195) within the FIFA rankings.

Pakistan, nonetheless, is hoping for a robust efficiency because it’s been bolstered by a variety of foreign-born gamers, together with former England U-20 captain Easah Suliman.