KARACHI: The Pakistan women’s football team was issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the tour of Singapore later this month on Thursday.
The development was confirmed after a notification in this regard was issued by the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination and foreign affairs.
The Pakistan team is scheduled to meet Singapore in friendlies at the latter’s backyard on July 15 and 18.
Earlier, the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had shown its inability to process the NOC for the country’s women football team’s tour of Singapore because of shortage of time.
PSB letter to PFF mentioned that federations are required to submit all relevant documents for government clearance at least six weeks before the departure date.
It is worth mentioning that the Football Association of Singapore sent official confirmation of the tour to PFF on 26th June, and PFF wrote the letter for NOC on 27th, which was delivered to PSB soon after Eid Holidays.
A source in PFF wondered how PSB can expect a federation to send documents for NOC even before the tour is confirmed.
Last month as well, the PFF had to wait until the last minute for NOCs to tour Mauritius and India.
Meanwhile, the PSB Director General Shoaib Khoso told The News that the PFF isn’t following the guidelines despite repeated reminders.
“There is a specific time for it. All federations have been issued SOPs and they follow a set practice. Only football is not following it. Unluckily there is no federation in football and NC is running it. It does not know the procedure,” Shoaib said.
“We have written letters four times that this is the procedure. The PSB does not issue NOC. Interior Ministry and Foreign Office issue NOC. It takes time in the Interior Ministry as it verifies through various agencies the players’ data. There is a need of four to six weeks to process the case.
“NC has inexperienced people and they don’t know how to handle such matters. The Board has processed its NOC and now it is not in our hands when it will be issued.”
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.