Friday, October 28, 2011
After a barren first half, striker Ansar Abbas struck from distance in the 64th minute to help the soldiers earn their ninth win of the season from 17 games they have played so far.
The loss left PAF struggling at 11 points from 18 appearances.
Meanwhile, the match between Muslim FC and Afghan FC that was scheduled to be held at the Government High School Ground in Chaman was postponed due to the death of former central Naib Amir of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) Maulana Abdul Ghani who died in a car crash on Wednesday.
On the request of JUI the PFF rescheduled the match and it will now be held on Friday (today) at 10:30am at the Sadiq Shaheed Stadium in Quetta. The match commissioner Abdul Samad told The News on Thursday that both Muslim FC and Afghan FC have reached Quetta for the game.
Meanwhile, the football authorities have clipped the wings of officials with the warning if anybody spoke against the referees, action would be taken against them as per PFF/FIFA rules.
The PFF had already sent show-cause notices to the National Bank coach Nasir Ismail and PIA coach Shamim Khan for giving statements to the press against the poor and partial refereeing by the referees during the matches in Quetta. A couple of former FIFA referees had also refused to supervise the matches involving Afghan FC.
But the hectic criticism from the team officials had forced the PFF few days ago to install neutral referees for the matches in Quetta and Shafaat Habib from Rawalpindi was seen supervising most of the Afghan FC meetings.
Meanwhile, sources told ‘The News’ that the pitch of the Municipal Stadium in Rawalpindi is deteriorating with the passage of time due to negligence on the part of the concerned authorities. Around sixty matches will be held on the pitch and there should be proper arrangements for the maintenance of the surface, a team official said.
Today’s fixtures: Muslim FC v Afghan FC (Sadiq Shaheed Stadium, Quetta, 10:30am), PEL v Baloch FC (Sadiq Shaheed Stadium, Quetta, 3:30pm), KRL v Navy (Municipal Stadium, Rawalpindi).