July 27, 2007	Friday	Rajab 11, 1428

KARACHI, July 26: Pakistan’s bid to scout soccer talent from United Kingdom received a blow when coach Akhtar Mohiuddin couldn’t leave for UK to select the British-born Pakistanis for the national side as Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) didn’t provide supporting documents for obtaining visa.

The former national coach was scheduled to leave on Wednesday from Lahore to Manchester to hold the two-day trials on Friday and Saturday in the UK to select the British players of Pakistani origin for the national team.

However, sources said British High Commission in Islamabad didn’t issue the visa since documents including evidence of financial circumstances and legitimate business interest in the UK were not furnished by the PFF which had sent the application on Akhtar’s behalf.

PFF and Akhtar came to know about the development on Tuesday when the coach reached Lahore to collect his passport and airline tickets from PFF headquarters. He was left with no option but to return to his hometown Quetta.

PFF had entrusted the coach with the task to select Pakistani players born and living in the UK after receiving requests from them to be considered for selection of the national team.

Sources said the players in the UK were enthusiastic and the local newspapers had also carried the news items regarding the trials. While Akhtar was unaware of his actual destination in the UK, sources said he was scheduled to travel to Rotherham which is east of Manchester.

The PFF secretary, Lt-Col Ahmad Yar (retd) was not available for comment.

However, Akhtar when contacted said he had no information whether he would be travelling to UK in near future.

“At the moment, I don’t know whether I will be going to the UK or not. I will go whenever the federation asks to me as recruiting players from UK is a very good idea,” Akhtar told Dawn from Quetta on Thursday.

If the programme is cancelled, Pakistan may be deprived of good imported talent from UK as players are full of zeal to represent their parent country.

Akhtar, who had assisted British John Layton during his three-year tenure as junior team coach, said presence of British players in the national outfit would not discourage the local players.

“Instead it will create a sense of competition. Our players, who do have talent but don’t work hard, will wake up to prove themselves once we have British-born Pakistanis in the team.

“But if we fail to find a big difference between the Pakistani players living in UK and our local players, then we will certainly prefer the local players. But I believe there are good players in the UK who could be a part of national team,” he said.

However, some experts argue that Pakistani players born and bred in the UK might be physically stronger than their counterparts in Pakistan but don’t have good technique just like local Pakistanis.

Fulham defender Zesh Rehman had represented Pakistan at SAFF championship in 2005 hosted by Karachi.

Pakistan were beaten 0-1 by Bangladesh in the semi-finals with Zesh in the ranks under Bahraini coach Salman Ahmed Sharida. Both went into oblivion after the event as Zesh went back to UK and Sharida to Bahrain, never to return.