August 28, 2008	Thursday	Sha'aban 25, 1429

LAHORE, Aug 27: Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) plans to hire a high-profile Romanian coach failed to materialise on Wednesday after it was discovered that some wrong information had been conveyed about his credentials by his agent.

The PFF almost agreed to hire Moldovan Eugen as coach recently and had even sent him the documents for signing as well.

“The agent had conveyed to us that Eugen has coached Bolivia which is currently ranked among top 70 countries in the FIFA rankings,” the secretary PFF Col. (retd) Ahmad Yar Lodhi told Dawn.

“It was also conveyed that Eugen had acted as coach for Saudi Arabia’s top-rated Al-Nasr Club but the Romanian coach in his original documents denied that he had any association with both the countries in the past.

“Basically it was the fault of the agent, who tried to hoodwink us but thanks to Mr Eugen, he cleared the situation well before the final agreement,” said Lodhi.

“Frankly speaking, we were also wondering how such a high-profile coach could agree to work with the Pakistan team for an annual remuneration of just US$100,000,” he said.

“The PFF is looking to approach another coach and is trying to negotiate with an Argentinean one this time. We are not in any hurry in selecting a coach as our first priority is to pick the best one within our resources,” he said.

He said the PFF was also trying to seek financial help from the government in hiring a foreign coach.

The PFF, after losing Bahrain’s Salman Sharida as coach in January 2007, relied on the local coaches but the team’s poor show in the SAF Gold Cup forced the federation to look for a foreign coach.