March 26, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 22, 1424

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LAHORE, March 25: An Indian marketing company has offered Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Rs 11 million for sponsoring the national league.

PFF has been under pressure from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to start league in the country. But PFF had so far failed to do so due to lack of sponsors.

The PFF secretary, Agha Liaqat Ali, told Dawn on Tuesday that he had received the offer from the chief of the Indian firm Dasgupta, during the last SAFF Cup Football Championship held in Bangladesh in Janaury.

He explained that the firm which is also sponsoring Bangladesh and Indian leagues has sent the offer in writing seeking information about the local teams and clubs.

He pointed out that the if the agreement was signed then the firm would also gain TV rights and would not allow Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) to telecast the matches.

However, he said that the deal would only be signed keeping national interests above all.

When asked why PFF had failed to hold the national championship-2002, the secretary said that the competition had been allotted to NWFP who could not organise it.

 However, now NWFP had sent a green signal for hosting it at Bannu from April 25 to May 15, he added.

He said that Pakistan put up a good performance in SAAF Cup and after that many countries showed their interest to play against Pakistan.

Pakistan could play a three match series against the “A” string of Cameroon in August this year if it qualified for the qualifying round of the Asia Cup-2004 after winning the preliminary round, currently in progress in Singapore. If not, the series will be reduced to two matches, he said.

In case of win, Pakistan are to play Kuwait and Qatar on home and away basis in September and October this year and two matches against Palestine at home next year in the qualifying round.

Meanwhile, AFC had rejected the request of PFF of shifting the Olympic-2004 qualifying round two matches against Syria to be held in Syria on April 15 and 18 this year due to US led war against Iraq.

“AFC has a vigilant eye on the security situation in the Gulf region which has no serious threat after the war and if any AFC will cope it with the help of hosting countries,” AFC replied to the request of PFF.