KARACHI, Jan 12: Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) on Monday decided against taking disciplinary action against Tariq Lutfi and retained him as assistant coach.

Tariq was facing an inquiry after criticizing the chief selector following a 2-0 loss against Kyrgyzstan in World Cup pre-qualifier, saying the team did not fare well because of exclusion of defender Haroon Yousuf.

Haroon was axed on Col Yunus Changezi's recommendation who suggested to appoint a younger skipper, while Tariq, who is not a selector, threw his weight behind the full-back.

"Since Tariq has again denied he gave the statement against chief selector, we can't take any action against him. Tariq will not be giving statements in future as it is the domain of top officials to talk on policy matters," PFF secretary Arshad Lodhi said.

The official had no answer when asked how could Tariq retract his statement while he made comments during a post-match press conference which were widely reported by the national media.

It was the second time in almost a month that Tariq came in the spotlight for wrong reasons. Earlier, he had triggered a controversy before the tie against Kyrgyzstan by announcing Haroon as skipper before retracting his statement when PFF sought an explanation.

PFF has now demoted him as assistant coach for the Under-23 SAF Games training camp in Lahore, while China's Wang Xiao He was given charge as coach. Arshad said performance would be the criteria to appoint the coaches for different squads. But he was unconvincing when asked why Tariq had been named as Xiao He's deputy despite team's pathetic showing under his wings.

"Manager's report says that team lost as it was not prepared and also due to cold weather in Bishkek," he added. Tariq's side gave miserable performance last year. It finished a poor fourth at SAFF Gold Cup in Dhaka and was eliminated from the Asian championship qualifying round after a 3-0 thrashing by hosts Singapore.

The team ended the year with a 2-0 defeat in Karachi against Kyrgyzstan and 4-0 drubbing in away match in Kyrgyz capital. However, Arshad said the executive and general council meetings only reviewed the coaches' performance of the tournaments organized after August 2003 when the PFF year started.

"We took over after August elections, therefore, what happened before that is not our concern," he said when asked why annual performance of the coaches was not reviewed.

Interestingly, Arshad said the Under-20 team, which also gave a worse performance under coach Siddiq Sheikh at Asian championship qualifier in Dhaka last year, played well but could not score a victory.

"Under-20 side played quite well, but could not record a victory in the end," official said. Pakistan lost 1-0 against Bangladesh before being whipped 3-0 by Nepal, and failed to qualify for the main round.

Asked what action would be taken against executive secretary Maj Farooq Mir who passed on only two names from a list of five or six coaches recommended by Yunus, Arshad considered it a "misunderstanding."

"Farooq gave Tariq and Siddiq's names to PFF as they are qualified to hold coaches courses," he said but failed to reply when asked why the official did not provide all the names to the president PFF Faisal Saleh Hayat.

However, he came out with a strange logic, saying PFF had 12 "qualified" coaches who would be given charge of various squads on basis of their performances.

"We will not set a tenure for coaches and all of them will be given a chance to prove their worth," he remarked. In all probability, the coaches would be attached with differentsquads on tournament-to-tournament basis, a practice which was criticized by AFC vice-president Manilal Fernando few years ago.