Sir,
My humble greetings on to you.
As a fervent of Pakistani Football, the last few months have
been pretty emotional for me. Seeing the team gain favourable results in
friendlies unearthed some hope in my heart, but when the time came to perform,
we were thrashed around in the AFC U22 Championship qualifiers against sides we
would have seen off with ease 40-50 years ago.
PFF was formed by Quaid-e-Azam and it is no surprise just
like the country founded by him has been sent down the drain, his beloved sport
football has too. A sport played and watched by the ordinary working class is
being ran by military men and politicians, just like the motherland.
You are very passionate for football but somehow it is not
reflecting in the management that is running or shall I say ruining the
football in Pakistan. The things happening under your nose at Pakistan Football
Federation (PFF) are of concern to me and others who follow domestic football
and the national team of Pakistan (there aren’t many of us). It’s true.
We were always a laughing stock in world and Asian football
but your first term as PFF president promised us hope and with titles in 2004
and 2006 SAF Games, fans believed we had turned a corner. Sadly more of the
worse was to come as you set into your second term, which brought new office
bearers to the fold who have done terrific job in undoing the work of their
predecessors.
You want to know why?! It’s because the PFF has failed to
initiate domestic reform and professionalism of football, and also because the
people running the PFF have vested interests with no real vision.
In our rival governing bodies of SAFF (South Asian Football
Federation) region, the posts are occupied by sport and business management
professionals. But the PFF is filled with ex-servicemen, including retired
Colonels, Majors and Wing Commanders who have no experience of football
whatsoever.
The Secretary General is a retired Lt Colonel, whose job it
is to oversee the game and foresee the future of football with vision, ambition
and commitment. The Director Operations is a retired Wing Commander who
previously headed sports department of a government college and worked in
Pakistan Squash Federation (now we know why squash went down the pipe).
Nationwide football is under the wing of this Wing Cmdr but
it’s clearly lacking the direction, vision and the willpower to overhaul
domestic football system to enable Pakistan to compete in the region. Various
other retired servicemen occupy other football- and admin-related posts in PFF.
In the last 6 years Pakistan has failed miserably locally
and abroad, national senior and youth teams continue to struggle under foreign
and local coaches while domestic football has gone from bad to worse. In fact,
Pakistan league champions have failed to beat clubs from minnows Bhutan and
Mongolia; countries with much worse football scene than Pakistan.
There is no genuine youth set-up for young talent offering
them a competitive route into football inside Pakistan or abroad. Government
departments continue to dominate local football due to having voting rights in
PFF Congress while they do absolutely nothing for players under the age of 16
and somehow expect them to be world-beaters having had no professional coaching
until that stage.
Our dream of qualifying for Qatar 2022 is nothing but a
joke, taking into account the fact that we are doing nothing to strengthen the
grass roots level properly. A so called ‘Vision 2020’ seems like nothing more
than a gimmick on paper with no concrete steps being taken to ensure the talent
is developed to even try and qualify for either 2020 Olympics or 2022 World
Cup.
You don’t just qualify for such events on basis or raw
talent and just luck. Lot of planning, investment and hard work is required for
at least a decade to reap benefits of it. Sadly with current management which
is just living off handouts from FIFA and AFC the vision wont be implemented
purely because it requires investment which the federation has failed to
attract due its own conduct.
I know PFF continues to use lack of funds as an excuse, what
have the officials done to attract investment from the corporate sector? KASB
Bank purchased rights for the domestic football for 5years back in 2009 but had
to leave just after a year due to difficult nature of PFF to implement the
ideas. PFF currently has no marketing director and no main sponsors and while
it had marketing director for 5years there were no major sponsorships either
for the domestic football or the national teams or even TV coverage for
domestic football.
GEO Super started a private league which attempted to
popularize the game back in 2007 but due to lack of support from the PFF it
stopped because somehow PFF cannot look beyond the departmental football set
up.
Just compare your staff with neighbors India. We can learn something in regards to football
and professionalizing sport in general from them. It’s a global reality that
sports governing bodies are mainly headed by high profile politicians and it’s
no surprise that All India Football Federation is headed by Praful Patel,
Minister for Heavy Industries. But it is his office bearers that make the
difference. AIFF Secretary General, Mr Kushal Das is a former CFO of IMG and
ICC, a chartered accountant by profession with decades of corporate experience.
I have no doubt that you and Mr. Patel are equally busy with
your political careers, after all you have spent majority of your tenure as
cabinet minister in previous and current government. You took great steps in
your first terms such as streamlining football in shape of Pakistan Premier
League and various other competitions but they have all become cannon fodder
due to lack of investment, professionalism and modernization. Sport has moved
on from just being administered by retired servicemen, it’s a professional
industry now which requires daring personnel to take it to next level.
This is something which must be brought to your attention
immediately. Sir, you are a member of the AFC Executive Committee and you would
already know what FIFA’s stance is on gross misconduct and corruption.
A recent report suggested rampant corruption and match
fixing in the Pakistan Premier League when its already plagued with forfeits
and walkovers which violate the sportsmanship rules. Yet the teams continue to
stay in the PPL, why? Because they have voting rights in the PFF Congress now!
Lethargic attitude by your staff in dealing strongly with
this matter has only encouraged these teams to forfeit and fix at will even
when there is relegation and title deciding games are on stake. The league has
been expanded on political basis rather than strategically which has damaging
effect on players and their development, from playing 22 matches in 100 days
they now play 30 matches in 4 months with hardly more than two-day gap between
matches. The league is inhumane. Professional leagues elsewhere with just 10
teams last up to six months while in Pakistan the league is expanded but the
season duration remains stagnant. There are no proper competitions in place for
the junior teams throughout the year other than ad-hoc two-week “national
championships”, which are insufficient to prepare and develop players for
international standard.
Secretary General and Director Operations for years have
fired the gun from shoulders of coaches in order to save their posts. Akhtar
Mohiuddin was sacrificed in 2008 after SAFF Cup failure when it was clear the
team was ill-prepared and captain picked on political preference.
George Kottan also had to endure the same treatment while
Graham Roberts had to suffer further humiliation when he was promised a
contract which was later rejected in favor of Tariq Lutfi of PIA, a department
that participates in PPL and holds vote, conveniently in the year of PFF
football elections.
His appointment further set us back and now with Serbian
coach Zavisa Milosavljevic, the same issues remain as football in Pakistan is
not of the standards for foreign coach to focus solely on national team as our
players still lack basics.
Speaking of which, there is still no dedicated training
facility for our national teams after 9 years of your presidency, and neither
is there an actual football stadium anywhere in Pakistan which PFF owns
exclusively.
Pakistan U16s won the SAFF U16s event last year beating
India in the final which was credited to great work done by the PFF with all
smiles around, 2 months later the same team failed to qualify for the \Asian
U16 Championships because there were no proper exposure trips provided.
On the other hand the Indian U16s qualified for AFC U16
Championship and their team has been based in Florida for last 2 years training
at IMG Soccer Academy. Our U16 team so far for a year has no further chances of
progression via overseas trips or any players having opportunities to move to
academies or clubs abroad.
They say success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.
I can categorically say sir in Pakistani football your Secretary General and
Director Operations have fathered these failures in last 6 years.
I kindly request you to urgently reform and restructure the
organization and appoint competent people from the field of sport management,
marketing and corporate administration who have the vision in transforming the
PFF into a professional and commercial organization and football a sport for
the masses.
Pakistan need to start a youth development program from the
age of Under-9s onwards while PPL sides should establish youth academies from
the same age groups following a common football curriculum which must also be
developed. There is need for a Director of Football, ideally a foreigner who
can come and design such curriculum and oversee the development. Local coaches
also need to be developed up to the required standard where they can coach the youth
basics of the game early on.
Sir, it seems our hopes in Pak football will always remain
unanswered unless you put your foot down and demonstrate transformational
leadership to lead from the front and change our football destiny.
Yours Sincerely,
A disgruntled Pakistani football follower
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