CHITRAL: Promoters and lovers of football in Chitral have expressed strong resentment over the exclusion of young football players from the district in the Malakand Division team selected for the ongoing Under-21 Games in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In a statement issued to the media, Ideal Club Chitral president of and a candidate for the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Executive Committee from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kamal Abdul Jamil, and others urged the chief minister, the minister for sports, the secretary for Sports and other officials concerned to conduct a transparent and impartial inquiry into the matter, to bring to light the factors behind deliberately keeping Chitral out of this process, and to take action against those responsible so that such practices can be prevented in the future.
They also made a special appeal to the deputy speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Suriya Bibi, and Member of the Provincial Assembly, Fateh-ul-Mulk Ali Nasir, to take notice of the issue and ensure that injustices against Chitral’s players are addressed in the future.
“Both districts of Chitral are extremely remote and calling players to Swat for trials effectively amounts to excluding them from the selection process,” Jamil said. He said that initial trials for the formation of divisional teams should have been conducted at the district level, while final trials of selected players should be held at the divisional level, with the mandatory involvement of the District Football Association (DFA) throughout the process.
