The Pakistan Football Federation on Wednesday relieved national team coach Serbian Zavisa Milosavljevic of his duties and appointed Bahrain team’s coach Mohammaed Al Shamlan to take the team into the SAFF Cup challenge next month.
It has been learnt that the appointment of Shamlan is the personal effort of PFF President Syed Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat who used his good terms with Bahrain Football Association President Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who is also the president of AFC, for the betterment of the Pakistan football.
Shamlan, who worked for two years under Bahrain national coach Salman Ahmed Sharida, will remain attached with the Pakistan football for two years and apart from his main challenge of training the national team for the SAFF Cup, he will also work with the junior national strings and training of the Pakistan coaches.
According to an official of the PFF it is the good gesture of Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa that Shamlan has been given to Pakistan free of cost otherwise it would not be easy for the PFF to bear an amount of around 30 to 40 million dollars to hire him.
Serbian coach Zavisa Milosavljevic’s contract was to expires in November but he was relieved of his duties three months before time to provide Shamlan enough time to work with the national team to prepare them for the upcoming events.
Shamlan recently served with the Bahrain’s Argentinean coach Gabriel Cauldron, who is said to have refused to renew his contract with the Bahrain Football Association (BFA) that expired last month which paved way for Shamlan to take his place with Bahrain team.
Despite ample international exposure given by the PFF to Zavisa’s Pakistan charges failed to click in the 2011 SAFF Cup in India and then in the 2013 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup Qualifiers in Kyrgyzstan.
His rookies also flopped miserably in the Under-22 Asian Championship Qualifiers in Saudi Arabia last year and in their last friendly outing against Afghanistan, Pakistan lost 0-3.
