November 23, 2007	Friday	Ziqa’ad 12, 1428

LAHORE, Nov 22: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) seems to have overlooked its own set of rules by allowing the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to play in the ongoing Premier Football League after missing the last three editions. Besides, it has also permitted Habib Bank Limited (HBL) and Afghan Club, Chaman, the two bottom-ranked teams from last year, to stay in the league.

According to the rules, before qualifying for the premier event, PIA was to participate in the second tier of the league since the nine times national champions were making a comeback after missing the last three editions.

The rules also say that the two teams finishing last from the previous year are to be relegated to the second tier. But the PFF has ended up allowing all the teams into the fray, making this a 14-team event.

When contacted, PFF Director Operations Pervez Saeed Mir told Dawn that the decision was taken for the promotion of the game.

“In case of no participation in the premier league, there were fears that PIA and HBL might eliminate the game from their programme which would have resulted in financial losses to many of the players. And when the PFF made an exception for HBL, permission also had to be given to the Afghan Club, Chaman, another relegated team, to stay in the premier league,” Pervez said.

According to the PFF’s director operations, PIA were the nine-time champions of the national championship and have played a great role for the progress of the game.

He, however, vowed that from next year onwards no relaxations of this kind would be given to any side and the three bottom teams would be relegated to the second tier, adding that “From next year, the PFF would allow the participating teams to hire up to four foreign players each in their ranks to make the competition tougher.”

In the ongoing premier league, each team has been allowed to hire two foreign players but the response has not been so good.

It was also said that the PFF was making the clubs more prosperous, binding the departments to pay Rs 50,000 to any club from which they wanted to recruit a player. The clubs at present are running short of funds while their product is going into the hands of a department without being given any benefit, which is quite discouraging.