ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) will invite either China or Asian Champions South Korea for an international matches series to prepare the home team for the South Asian Federation (SAF) Games being held here in March-April.

"An invitation letter will be faxed to the Chinese Volleyball Federation in a couple of days while we will also approach Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) to see out Korean team for a series of five or seven matches against Pakistan on home-and-away basis", a senior official of PVF said on Saturday.

The final phase of training camp for the 9th SAF Games commenced at Liaquat Gymnasium, Pakistan Sports Complex, on Saturday with 20 players initially asked to attend the camp.

"We plan to trim the camp strength to a more manageable 16 within the next month", said the PVF secretary, Maj. (r) Muhammad Afzal."As many as 12 spikers will be selected for the SAF Games when the entries by name are finalised by the end of February".

The 9th SAF Games will be played here from March 29 to April 7.

He said all the 16 players would be tried in the series to be played at home in February either against China or South Korea. The national team will also pay a return tour to whichever of these two countries is available to play Pakistan, probably between March 1 to 20.

Earlier, PVF had been in the process of inviting Iran for the series against Pakistan's SAF Games probables but is now apprehensive about the prospects of this effort seeing the light of the day in view of devastating earthquake in Bam region of South-East Iran, claiming the lives of approximately 50,000 people.

The players called to the camp training at Liaquat Gymnasium, Pakistan Sports Complex, are Tufail, Ehsanullah, Kashif Mansoor, Sajid Nawaz, Mazhar Hussain, Amjad, Tariq, Naseer, Bakht Risal, Sanaullah, Ashfaq Hussain, Muhammad Elahi, Ehsan Iqbal, Irfan Nawaz, Shahid Hussain, Liaquat, Jawad, Muneebullah, Zafar Iqbal.

Meanwhile, Pakistani spikers' foreign coach for the SAF Games, Ivan Stepanov of Bulgaria, will arrive here within a week to take charge of the training camp. Muhammad Bakhsh Javed and Farooq will assist the Bulgarian in his coaching assignment.-APP