The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) is now hopeful to receive Singapore visas early tomorrow [Friday] after they received No-Objection Certificate (NOC) for the women team's friendly matches today.
The Pakistan team is scheduled to meet Singapore in friendlies at the latter’s backyard on July 15 and 18.
The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had shown its inability to process the NOC for the country’s women football team’s tour of Singapore because of shortage of time.
However, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's special assistant - Shaza Fatima - intervened in the matter and helped PFF get NOC from the foreign office.
"Prime Minister played an important role in getting NOC for our team," she said.
Sources told Geo News that as soon as PFF receive visas, they will book the best available flight to Singapore.
It is worth mentioning that the Football Association of Singapore sent official confirmation of the tour to PFF on 26th June, and PFF wrote the letter for NOC on 27th, which was delivered to PSB soon after Eid Holidays.
A source in PFF wondered how PSB can expect a federation to send documents for NOC even before the tour is confirmed.
Last month as well, the PFF had to wait until the last minute for NOCs to tour Mauritius and India.
Meanwhile, the PSB Director General Shoaib Khoso told The News that the PFF isn’t following the guidelines despite repeated reminders.
“There is a specific time for it. All federations have been issued SOPs and they follow a set practice. Only football is not following it. Unluckily there is no federation in football and NC is running it. It does not know the procedure,” Shoaib said.
“We have written letters four times that this is the procedure. The PSB does not issue NOC. Interior Ministry and Foreign Office issue NOC. It takes time in the Interior Ministry as it verifies through various agencies the players’ data. There is a need of four to six weeks to process the case.
“NC has inexperienced people and they don’t know how to handle such matters. The Board has processed its NOC and now it is not in our hands when it will be issued.”
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.