KARACHI, Aug 23: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Friday retained the 21-member squad for Under-17 Asian championship that participated in the qualifying round and named five officials that include at least two “joyriders”.

The PFF has reversed its earlier decision of staying away from the 12-team contest and will now send the team for the tournament in UAE from Sept 6.

Apart from coach John Layton, goalkeeping coach Mohammad Afzal, manager Abdul Aziz Malik, assistant manager Mohammad Iqbal, Faizur Rahman (doctor) will also accompany the team.

“There is nothing wrong in taking few people for joyrides. If any official is additional, then one can say it is just to oblige him,” PFF vice-president Ghulam Abbas Baloch remarked.

The PFF sent an army of eight officials to Beirut and Bangkok where the team played World Cup qualifiers last year. FIFA had recently promised to reprimand the PFF for sending officials in such huge numbers.

Asked the reason for reversing the decision about the UAE event, Abbas said it was because of criticism in the media that forced the officials to change their minds.

“After being criticised by the media, the PFF has now decided to field the team. Frankly, I think the team should go and earlier decision by the PFF was not in the best interest of the game,” Abbas said.

Previously, the PFF had given lame excuses as contentions for decision against participating in the UAE tournament. Lack of time for preparations, fear of losing heavily, and busy schedule of coach Layton, were the three reasons cited by the PFF for not taking part in the tournament.

Interestingly, the squad that reached Dushanbe barely 22 hours before the first match of the qualifiers, had less than 15-day training, but still managed to rout Turkmenistan 4-0 in the opener.

Pakistan failed to qualify for the main round as they lost to Tajikistan 2-0 but luckily became the logical replacement after FIFA and AFC suspended qualifiers Tajikistan.

After the latest development, Pakistan now meet South Korea in their first game on Sept 7, to be followed by matches against Vietnam and Yemen on Sept 10 and 13 respectively.

Apart from hosts UAE, China, India, Myanmar, Yemen, Vietnam, South Korea, Qatar, Japan, Syria and Uzbekistan, will be vying for top honours in the desert cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The 21-member squad has been asked to assemble in Islamabad on Aug 25, and may leave on Sept 3 or 4 for the UAE.

Squad:

Mohammad Saleem, Saifullah, Anwar Hussain, Nadeem Masih, Gulzar Ahmad, Mohammad Arif, Imran Hussain, Mohammad Idrees, Khalid Zaman, Abdul Samad, Zulfiqar Ali, Mohammad Aurangzaib, Siraj Hussain, Shahid Akhtar, Jawaid Hamza, Faisal Ashiq, Waseem Abbas, Mohammad Younus, Noorul Haq, Mohammad Ali, Abdul Qadeer.