Pakistan Football Connect programme unveiled

KARACHI: Pakistan Football Federation's (PFF) Normalisation Committee on Thursday unveiled Pakistan Football Connect programme, a revolutionary stakeholder registration and management system powered by FIFA.

“I want to congratulate the community on the launch of the Pakistan Football Connect programme,” NC’s chairman Haroon Malik told a news conference at Lahore. “We now have a way to ensure that no stakeholder in Pakistan football is left unregistered or uncounted. This is the foundation of a robust system that Pakistan football was searching for,” he added.

The FIFA Connect Programme helps football associations across the world organise their football in a systematic and transparent way. All stakeholders, including clubs, officials, players, coaches and referees, are registered digitally and issued a unique FIFA ID. This code is like a digital football passport number and has the history of each stakeholder.

Players’ Connect IDs, for example, will store their performance data such as which competition they have played in, which clubs they represent, how they have performed. Similarly, a referee’s involvement, performance and experience can be tracked – and subsequently, their training and posting opportunities are decided on merit.

Pakistan Football Connect programme is headquartered in Karachi with dedicated staff working to facilitate the registrations of various football stakeholders across Pakistan.

“For the ease and comfort of the football community in Pakistan, we have introduced the Urdu version of the programme alongside the English version. Through such facilitation in the system we hope to remove any accessibility barriers that the community may face. Club organisers will be able to work in a language they are comfortable with. They can also contact the officials concerned through a dedicated help-line and find information and guidance in English, Urdu and regional languages as well,” said PFF.