September 6, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-us-Saani27,1423

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KARACHI, Sept 5: A depleted 16-man Under-17 soccer squad left for the United Arab Emirates Thursday to participate in the Asian championship being hosted by Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) had earlier announced a 21-member squad along with five officials on Aug 23 for the 12- team contest. But the PFF not only reduced the number of players later, but also changed the composition of the squad.

Only nine players who were among the 21 named earlier by the PFF have been retained for the UAE competition, which starts from Friday while seven new have been added.

Owing to shortage of time for preparation, the PFF did not hold trials or a long duration camp and had retained the squad that took part in the qualifiers in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, in May.

Pakistan have been invited by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the tournament after qualifiers Tajikistan were suspended by FIFA in August. According to team coach John Layton, he was forced to call some more players due to various reasons.

“A few players, including, Mohammad Younus, Gulzar Ahmad, were injured, while some of them invited did not report like Abdul Qadeer and Mohammad Ali,” Layton said before leaving for the UAE.

Layton, a Briton assigned by the AFC on a three-year contract, said some players having insufficient documents were also dropped and replaced on Aug 29.

According to a PFF spokesman, Layton and manager Abdul Aziz Malik had departed for Dubai Wednesday, while remaining three officials — goalkeeping coach Mohammad Afzal, assistant manager Mohammad Iqbal, and doctor Faizur Rahman, left Thursday.

But the PFF vice-president Ghulam Abbas Baloch, who had announced the 21-man squad earlier, had another story.

“I know that squad has been reduced to 16 players, but I don’t know why it has been done. But there is a possibility that some of the boys were overage.

“I am not aware that most of the players who were among the 21-member squad have been changed by the coach,” Abbas said.

Following is the 21-member squad announced on Aug 23.

Squad:

Mohammad Saleem, Saifullah, Anwar Hussain, Nadeem Masih, Gulzar Ahmad, Mohammad Arif, Imran Hussain, Mohammad Idrees, Khalid Zaman, Abdul Samad, Zulfiqar Ali, Mohammad Aurangzaib, Siraj Hussain, Shahid Akhtar, Jawaid Hamza, Faisal Ashiq, Waseem Abbas, Mohammad Younus, Noorul Haq, Mohammad Ali, Abdul Qadeer.

The new 16-member squad is: (* denotes new players)

Shahid Akhtar, Nadeem Masih, Faisal Ashiq, Imran Hussain, Abdul Samad, Mohammad Arif, Mohammad Saleem, Jawaid Hamza, Mohammad Aurangzaib, *Ramzan Ali, *Mohammad Imran, *Mohammad Kashif, *Mohammad Omar Farooq, *Mirza Waqas Baig, *Mohammad Waseem, *Zahid Ali.