LAHORE, March 22: Pakistan has made a bid for hosting the AFC President Cup to be held from May 4-14, announced Pakistan Football Federation on Tuesday.
The bid was officially made by director technical PFF, Mujahid Ullah Khan at a workshop of AFC held in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, said a spokesman of the PFF.
Mujahid along with senior vice-president, Noorul Huda represented Pakistan in the workshop which invited bids for staging the cup after hosts Nepal backed out due to unavoidable circumstances.
President AFC Cup is a club competition for the clubs from the AFC emerging member associations.
He said after refusal of Nepal PFF showed willingness and submitted the meeting the name of their four centres, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi to play host.
“Tajikistan has also given the bid to stage the event and AFC will decide the matter next month after venue inspection in both the countries,” he said.
He said according to the draws of the tournament taken out, Pakistan’s club Wapda will take on Blue Star SC (Sri Lanka) and Dordoi Dynamo (Kyrgyzstan) and Hello United (Cambodia) in Group B of the Cup.
“It will be second event for Wapda, five-times winner of national championship in 1983, 1991, 2001, 2003, 2004,to play in the Asian Club championship before their participation in 1991 event,” he said.
He said that the draw of 8-team competition shows each group consisting of two teams from South Asia, one team each from Central Asia and the last team in the group from either East Asia or ASEAN, He said.
The other Group comprises Three Star Club (Nepal), Transport United (Bhutan), Regar-Tadaz (Tajikistan) and Tai Power Company (Chinese Taipei).—APP
