ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) will soon hire the services of a leading foreign coach in an effort to build a stronger football squad for international events.

This was disclosed by the President PFF, Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat at a press conference held at the Pakistan Sports Complex on Wednesday.

“We have shortlisted seven candidates for selection and negotiations are underway to hire a top performing coach who will be paid no less than $10,000 to 15,000 per month to train the national squad.”

Faisal said that two of the coaches hail from the UK while others are from Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary and Iran.

On the instructions of the president of FIFA, Sept Blatter, he said, the federation would soon launch football for peace initiative.

He added that PFF had marked some places in Balochistan, Fata and NWFP where youth would be given incentives to adopt the game as well as pursue their education. Faisal, added that Spain, USA, Australia and Germany have also offered technical and financial assistance for the said purpose.

The standard of football, he said, in the country is improving day by day and it is at a good level. He added that the international governing body FIFA and Asian Football Confederation appreciated the game’s progress in the country.

Faisal said: “Pakistan has been included in AFC vision 2009 programme. The bodies have also increased financial and technical support to PFF”. The annual budget of PFF, he said, is Rs 40 million as compared to India as they have Rs 1,000 million annual budget. But when it comes to performance, he said, Pakistan are still far better than India as we have defeated them in important events and also have good goal average in the recently held friendly tournaments. “ We have even defeated Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal” he said.