LAHORE, April 16: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has approved the names of 27 players for the national under-14 camp set up in preparation for the AFC U-14 Festival of Football, scheduled to be held in Iran from May 10-23.

The PFF had invited 78 players from after country-wide trials of which 61 reported at the Punjab Stadium on Wednesday. Later, head coach Nasir Ismail and assisting coaches Shahzad Anwar and Muhammad Aslam decided to retain 27 players in the camp.

Pakistan will participating in the AFC event alongside nine other nations including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and host Iran. On the sidelines of the Festival, an AFC ‘C’ coaching license and referees course will be held besides a workshop for the teams’ coaches.

PFF retained 13 players from under-13 national squad that visited Bangladesh last year to outplay India 3-1, Maldives 6-0 and drew 0-0 with Iran.

The 27 players short-listed for camp are: Ahsanullah (Karachi), Yasir Ali (Karachi), Daniyal (Karachi), Ghazanfar Yaseen (Lahore), Uzair Qadir (Karachi), Adeel Khalid (Faisalabad), Awais Anwar (Nowshera), Muhammad Sajid (Faisalabad), Hassan Saleem Khan (Lahore ), Asif Waris (Karachi), Sharam Babar (Faisalabad), Hussnain Arshad (Sargodha), Muhammad Salman (Lahore), Habibullah (North Waziristan), Amir Oghan (Karachi), Bilal Arshad (Islamabad), Asad Irfan (Sialkot), Abdul Waheed (Karachi), Faheem Shah (Karachi), Hassan Khan (Sialkot), Zainul Islam (Lahore), OmerYounas (Karachi), Sher Muhammad (Karachi), Muhammad Nawaz (Faisalabad), Fazal Muhammad (Khuzdar), Irfan Younas (Karachi), Ahmad Faheem (Khanewal). — Agencies