Pakistan to host AFC President’s Cup 2012 qualification group

AFC President's Cup logo

Pakistan, Lahore, Friday, March 2, 2012

Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) has been honored to host the prestigious “AFC President’s Cup 2012 Group Stage (Qualification) Tournament” to be played in Punjab Stadium, Lahore from May 8 to 13 May, 2012. In this tournament four champion clubs (three foreign countries and one Pakistan) will participate. The award for holding this event shows the confidence reposed in the leadership of PFF professional competence, administrative skills and devotion for the promotion and development of football in Pakistan. It will not be out of place to mention here that in the year 2007, Pakistan had been honored to host the similar event.

According to the press release issued here by PFF, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President’s Cup is an annual international association competition between domestic clubs’ sides run by the AFC. Qualification to the competition is the clubs from AFC-affiliated countries which fall into the AFC’s ’emerging nations’ category as laid out in their ‘Vision Asia’ document. Countries which are ‘mature’ and ‘developing’ nations are entered into the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup, respectively. For an ’emerging nation’ to have a team representing it in the competition, however, the country must have an acceptable football league. The team that represents a country in one season of the competition is the defending champion of the top-level leagues of participating countries.