LAHORE: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has failed to send any doctor to attend the sports medicine conference, organised by FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland this month, because it does not have a professional doctor on its panel.

Dawn has learnt that football’s world governing body had invited two persons from every FIFA-affiliated country to attend the said conference.

The federations were allowed to either send the president or secretary of the respective unit for the conference, but a doctor was a must.

While the PFF President Faisal Saleh Hayat recommended his own name as one of the participants, to send a doctor he first recommended the name of Arif Raheem, who in the past had been marketing for the federation, but now has no link with the federation.

However, FIFA did not accept the entry of Arif for the conference as he has no link with the medical profession.

Then the PFF proposed the name of Syed Zahir Ali Shah, who is health minister of the NWFP, but FIFA again did not entertain this entry.

Instead of picking a suitable person, the PFF finally dropped the (doctor) invitation as only the president visited Zurich for the sports medicine conference.