Faisal appoints Akhtar as Football head coach

LAHORE—Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has appointed Akhtar Mohiuddin as head coach of the National team which will take part in Second AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers from April 2-6. The camp will commence from February 20 and continued till March 31 when the team will leave for the Chinese Taipei which will host four-team Group-A qualifier, where other teams are last edition’s runner-up Sri Lanka and little-known Guam.
The six-match event will run at Chungshan Soccer Stadium. It will be Akhtar’s first assignment in 2008. He was in same capacity last year when Pakistan faced Asian Champion Iraq in two-legged 19th World Cup Qualifiers at Lahore and Damascus in October 2007. Earlier in April 2007, he was head coach of PFF Eleven during E.K.Nayanar Memorial International Gold Cup Football Tournament at Kannur, Kerala (India). Akhtar was also part of the coaches’ panel when Pakistan defeated India in the inaugural Indo-Pak series 2005. Akhtar was also chief coach when Pakistan played AFC U-14 Festival in Kathmandu in 2004.
PFF retained all the officials who came back with style from Damascus, playing scoreless draw with big gun Iraq at Syrian capital. Former ABL’s spearhead Gohar Zaman (Peshawar) will act as coach while another former star of ABL, goal-keeper Noman Ibrahim (Sahiwal) is being asked to act as Goal-keeper coach. Islamabad’s Irfan Khan Niazi is the manager of the team. PFF has called three foreign based players Iltaf Ahmed, Zeeshan Rehman and Adnan Farooq Ahmed to join the 48-probable camp for the build up of the team. A total of twenty teams are taking part in second AFC Challenge Cup. North Korea, Turkmenistan, India and Myanmar will take part only in the final round of the tournament. The other 16 teams are grouped in 4 groups for the qualifying round. The date and Groupings for the qualificiation round are as follows: Group A at Chinese Taipei,April 2-6 (Sri Lanka, Chinese Taipei, Pakistan, Guam) Group B at Philippines, May 13-17 (Tajikistan, Brunei, Philippines, Bhutan) Group C at Kyrgyzstan, May 5-10 (Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Laos) Group D at Nepal, 10-15 May (Nepal, Palestine, Cambodia, Macau) Final Round at India, July 30 to August 10 (North Korea, Turkmenistan, India, Myanmar, Champions of Group A,B,C & D—Agencies