Foreign football coaches due next week
LAHORE, Dec 22: The newly appointed Slovenian coach of the Pakistan football team Joseph Herel and another English coach John Laytton are due to arrive here on Dec 27 and 31, respectively.
Both the coaches have been provided by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
Joseph Herel is coming in place of David Burns who was terminated by the AFC early this year after developing differences with the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF). Laytton who came here with Burns as coach for the juniors, had to leave the country after Sept 11 attacks in USA due to security reasons, has confirmed his arrival details to the PFF. In absence of a senior team coach, Laytton had been coaching both the junior and senior teams.
A PFF spokesman told Dawn on Saturday that Herel and Laytton will join the national training camp which will resume on Sunday.
The camp is resuming to finalise Pakistan team for the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Gold Cup to be held at Dhakka, Bangladesh from Jan 26 to Feb 4.
The AFC provided Herel as Burn’s replacement after a long period of about a year. The new coach Joseph Herel (50) had played first division league of Slovenia from 1970 to 1975. He had performed as chief coach for Malaysian first division league from 1992 to 1995. He had one year coaching assignment with a club in Maldives in 1999. Prior to joining the Pakistan team, Joseph Herel was the chief coach of the Slovenians first division league since 2000.
Meanwhile, the third tranche of $ 250,000 from FIFA has been received by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF).
Informed sources told Dawn that the third instalment of a total grant of $ One million was received by the federation last week.
FIFA has granted the hefty amount for the promotion of the game in Pakistan and it has to be paid in four equal instalments of $ 250,000 of which PFF has already received two instalments.