LAHORE, Dec 12: The Football House under the FIFA goal Project will be built in Lahore.

The decision was taken by the FIFA Goal Project’s representative to Pakistan Manilal Fernando after holding a detailed meeting with the officials of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) here on Wednesday.

 The PFF had selected Islamabad for the Football House, but Manilal Fernando recommended Lahore.

FIFA has allotted $ 4,00,000 to Pakistan under the Goal Project the main purpose of which is to set up a Football House academy to train the upcoming lot on modern ways. The other aspects of the project are to lay down artificial football grounds and to improve the administration matters of the federation.

Fernando who hails from Sri Lanka is also the vice president of the Asian Football Confederation and chairman of FIFA’s legal committee.

Fernando after briefing the mediamen about the decision taken in the meeting left for Islamabad by road to meet the federal sports minister and the Pakistan Sports Board officials there on Thursday.

The FIFA representative said that he supported Lahore as the venue of the Football House as the city was an old one having good number of schools and rich sports culture.

He said that in next phases regional academies would also be set up in other three provincial headquarters of the country with priority to be given to Karachi city.

The FIFA representative said that the PFF had already made enough delay in completing the spade work of the Goal Project which final date for approval was Feb 15, 2002.

He said that if the PFF failed to meet the dead line it would be ousted  from Goal Project under which 110 countries had been benefited so far.

He pointed out that the PFF has been advised to send its complete plans to him by January 5, 2002 so that he could have it approved it from FIFA before Feb 15.

He emphasised that FIFA, for the  first time had paid great attention to the SAARC region, allotting the Goal Project funds to all the seven countries including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

He added that it was now upto the respective federation to take full advantage through these projects. He said from next year Afghanistan would also be included in the Goal Project.

While replying to a question, he said that more funds  would be allotted under the Goal Project to those countries which would complete its first phase to the entire satisfaction of the FIFA.

Present on the occasion, the PFF secretary Agha Syed Liaqat Ali clarified that all delays were due to a late arrival of Manilal Fernando to Pakistan owing to the Afghanistan crisis.

The PFF secretary assured that a plot  for the Football House in Lahore would be acquired soon and all the other requirements of the FIFA representative would be completed prior to Jan 5,  2002.  He

Fernando also stressed upon the PFF to start National League immediately under the Asian Football Confederation’s instructions.

He said that Sri Lanka and India were holding it on regular basis but he could not understand that why PFF was reluctant to revive this important domestic activity.

He said that the PFF administration structure need lot  of attention and it should set up finance and marketing  departments to run the affairs of the federation smoothly and professionally.