KARACHI, Dec 28: Former national football team coach Tariq Lutfi has said that it would be a great shame if the FIFA Goal Project II was moved again from Karachi.

Speaking to Dawn on Sunday, Lutfi who served as coach of the Pakistan team from 1985 to 94, said: “We were so disappointed when the first Goal Project, given to Karachi in 1999, was moved to Lahore and now it is sad to know that the second one too is in jeopardy.”

He added: “I have had lengthy interactions with FIFA’s Assistant Development Officer Mohsen Gilani and am aware that FIFA as well as the Pakistan Football Federation [PFF] want to build it in Karachi. The land in Hawkesbay which the Sindh Football Association [SFA] got for the project from the Government of Sindh may not be suitable for growing grass and for that reason FIFA also increased the grant from $400,000 to $500,000 for Astroturf.

“It will make the ground available for play all year round. I just hope the SFA is able to sublease the land to PFF in time.”

Lutfi, who currently coaches the Pakistan International Airlines football team, said that he has firsthand knowledge of the football talent in Lyari.

“All the football coaches working here including the AFC Aid-27 coaches are my students. I was the first Pakistan FIFA instructor and have also conducted coaching workshops in Jordan and Sri Lanka and I know talent when I see it. Lyari happens to have the most natural talent in football in the entire country and the children of Lyari deserve to have a proper football academy here which only the Goal Project can provide to them,” he said.

The PFF President Makhdoon Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat and FIFA ADO Mohsen Gilani on Friday had requested the SFA officials to add a clause allowing them to sublease plot 13 A-1, located in Scheme 42 of Hawkesbay, to the PFF as it is the federation that’s affiliated to FIFA, on which some officials of SFA’s Zonal Football Association had grown disheartened.

They were afraid that it was PFF’s conspiracy to find faults with the land or its papers in order to move the project away from Karachi once again.

“They too need to understand the legalities in all this. I also urge them to remain calm and be optimistic as there is only this small hitch remaining between them and the project now,” he spoke about the Zonal Football officials.

“They have come this far. They shouldn’t throw it all away now due to their attitude problems,” he added.

“I also earnestly request the Sindh government and the board of revenue to allow the SFA to sublease the land to the PFF in order get their papers in order and fulfill FIFA’s requirement,” he concluded.