KARACHI, Feb 5: Pakistan football coach on Wednesday demanded cash incentives for himself and threatened to protest if Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) refused to pay heed.

Tariq Lutfi, who took over the reins of the national side last December for the SAFF championship in Dhaka, said there should be lucrative package which could only bring positive results.

“We cannot provide positive results with an amateur approach if we want professionalism in football. I have told the PFF secretary Agha Liaquat about my demands and I will strongly protest if PFF is not ready to accept them,” he said.

The coach, however, did not disclose what kind of protest he would lodge if PFF refused to accept his demands. It is not the first time that Tariq, associated with PIA as coach, has asked for salary increase from the PFF.

Tariq surprisingly refused to train the probables for the March 29 to April 7 SAF Games saying “I need rest and some time with my family after spending more than a month away.”

He trained and accompanied the team to Dhaka where Pakistan finished fourth in the eight-nation tournament in January.

However, he had no satisfactory answer when asked whether it was a professional approach to stay away with the national camp just to spend time with the family.

“I will join the camp for Asian championship qualifiers to be played in March in Singapore. Besides, SAF Games will be for Under-23, while I am the senior team coach,” he said.

However, when asked whether he considered Under-23 a youth side, he replied in negative. He had no answer when asked why former senior team coach Jozef Herel was assigned to train the SAF Games squad if senior coach was not supposed to prepare the Under-23 side.

The coach said he had also recommended the PFF to appoint Siddiq Sheikh as the coach for the SAF Games training camp in Islamabad.

Interestingly, Siddiq, who belongs to HBL, is currently associated with his departmental hockey team as manager and also serves as a physical trainer during the ongoing national championship.

Tariq was also critical of the way the PFF is running the affairs which he said were in a mess due to what he said lack of professionalism.

“The team should have left for Dhaka at least four days before SAFF event. PFF should have arranged practice matches ahead of the tournament. I must say, PFF, especially its Lahore office lacks professionalism,” he said.

Tariq admitted he had called defender Amir Khan as reinforcement before the Dhaka contest, although he relied on players called up by Herel.

“But I will be inviting some four to five more players for the next assignment. Mohammad Essa, Gohar Zaman and few others will be invited and few changes are expected,” he said.

The coach said it was because of lack of motivation and incentives because of which Pakistan lost to Maldives 1-0 in the SAFF championship semifinal.

He, however, could not elaborate why the team lost to Maldives despite a moraleboosting 1-0 victory over arch-rivals India in the opener.

But he emphasised on giving team extensive exposure and gave an example of Maldives who participated after playing league in Malaysia and some games against Slovakia at home.