LAHORE, April 4: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) President Faisal Saleh Hayat said the FIFA instructor courses have been designed to ensure a better future of the game, while producing quality technical officials.

“If we have technically sound individuals then we can promote the game on long-term basis as we have the qualified people who have the game’s current knowledge to organise football activities,” he said here on Wednesday while congratulating Pakistan’s Tariq Lutfi on becoming the first-ever FIFA Coaching Instructor from South Asia.

He added the instructor courses help in learning management, coaching, and refereeing, with an equally rich array of information and debate in workshops dedicated to unity, fitness training for referees, and coaching development in women’s football.

The PFF chief insisted the aim of the seminars was to exchange experience, establish personal contacts between groups of international experts, convey information regarding future FIFA projects and programmes, present new instruction materials, stimulate debate over the follow-up projects within various development programmes, and lay out the schedule of activities planned for 2007.

“Presently, there are about 30 active women’s football teams out of over 140 all over the world. Although, female football players are not as popular as the male footballers, and are not paid as well as male football players, the clear tendency is that things are going to change drastically over the next few years”, said Faisal Saleh Hayat who is also member of AFC Disciplinary Committee.

Lutfi attended Women's Football Instructor Seminar last month in which a total of 19 instructors gathered for the seminar in Zurich specifically dedicated to training coaches and instructors in women’s football.

Meanwhile, Lutfi hailed the PFF chief for taking concrete steps in boosting Pakistan men and women’s football. —APP