Pakistan ladies’s crew celebrates after scoring the winner in opposition to Tajikistan. — PFF/File
KARACHI: In a optimistic improvement, the ladies’s nationwide soccer crew lastly obtained on Saturday a no objection certificates (NOC) to take part within the SAFF Girls’s Championship.
The crew obtained the clearance from the Pakistan Sports activities Board (PSB) simply three hours earlier than their flight to Kathmandu, Nepal, the place the occasion in scheduled to happen from October 17 to 30.
The PSB had initially declined the NOC request, citing delays within the crucial documentation from the Normalisation Committee (NC) of the Pakistan Soccer Federation (PFF).
The board had demanded the NC to submit the required paperwork to facilitate the NOC course of. Nonetheless, as a result of administrative subject, this wasn’t adopted and technicalities left the crew in an unsure situation simply days earlier than the championship.
In a letter from the PSB, the board acknowledged: “Based on the undertaking given by Muhammad Shahid Niaz Khokhar, Member, Normalisation Committee of Pakistan Football Federation, the Pakistan Sports Board has no objection on participation of Pakistan Women National Football Team to participate in SAFF Football Championship to be held in Nepal from 17th to 30th October, 2024.”
The PSB sources claimed that the board’s choice to subject the NOC was pushed by a dedication to help the athletes, regardless of the procedural shortcomings from the PFF. The sources famous that the PSB aimed to make sure the crew’s participation within the SAFF Championship, recognising the significance of worldwide competitors for the event of girls’s soccer in Pakistan.
The delay in NOC approval raised issues in regards to the crew’s skill to compete, because the occasion options groups from throughout South Asia, offering a major platform for the gamers to showcase their abilities and signify Pakistan.
The SAFF Girls’s Championship is taken into account an necessary occasion for the expansion of girls’s soccer within the area, and the crew’s participation underscores a renewed deal with empowering feminine athletes in Pakistan.
Because the crew prepares for his or her journey, they carry the hopes of a nation trying to enhance its standing in worldwide ladies’s soccer. The PSB’s intervention on the final second highlights the continued challenges throughout the administrative constructions governing sports activities in Pakistan but additionally displays a willingness to prioritise athletes’ wants amid bureaucratic delays.
