Former Pak football coach to join Brazilian club

KARACHI: Pakistan senior football team former head coach Shehzad Anwar is set to hit new heights as he has been called by Brazilian club SKA FC for joining its coaching staff.

Shehzad, the only Pro License holder in Pakistan, will leave for Brazil early next month.

“Yes I have been called by SKA FC and when I will go there then it will be known which age-group team of the club I will have to work with,” Shehzad told The News from Sargodha on Sunday.

“It will be a massive experience. Their senior team plays in second division while their under-20 team is in the first division,” Shehzad said.

Asked if the authorities need his services for Pakistan team in the meanwhile then what he will do, Shehzad said, serving national team will be the priority then.

Former defensive midfielder Edmílson Moraes, who had helped Brazil lift the 2002 World Cup trophy, is the president of Ska FC Brasil based at Santana de Parnaiba, a city and municipality in the state of Sao Paulo.

Shehzad is no stranger to Brazil’s club environment as he has also worked there in Sao Paulo with clubs in connection with his Pro License practical sessions.

Shehzad, who also served as head coach of PAF in the Premier league which has been abandoned last November after Punjab government sealed the PFF headquarters in Lahore.

Not only Shehzad is going to Brazil to join Ska FC but his Islamabad-based club Popo FC’s two young footballers Waleed Khan and Mohammad Rizwan are also going to join the same club.

Both recently were part of the PAF team in the top-tier league of Pakistan partially organised by Ashfaq Group.

Waleed is a striker while Rizwan is a midfielder.

Pakistan’s players’ tendency to join foreign clubs has been diminished for the last few years because of the inactive football in the country where the sport suffered massively due to infighting among various factions. The cold war almost wasted six precious years of Pakistan football during which several batches of players suffered the most. Pakistan still is serving FIFA suspension. However a hope has been created now and it is expected that FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee will be given the chance to go for PFF elections which is the only way to resolve this long-standing dispute.