Russia at last, has called off the proposed friendly football match against Pakistan, confirmed by the Russian Football Union (RFU) on Tuesday.
The union cited time constraints and a lack of clarity over the team composition on Pakistan’s side for cancelling the match.
In a statement, the RFU’s communication service said that the match, scheduled to take place on October 11 with Pakistan, will not take place in this window.
“The RFU continued to discuss with Pakistan the possibility of a friendly match, however, based on the time frame of the training camp that had begun, it decided not to hold the game,” the statement said.
This development followed a complicated series of events.
Initially, the Pakistan Football Federation’s Normalisation Committee had expressed its inability to field a national team due to the short preparation time.
“We had informed the Russian Football Union weeks ago that assembling a team for October FIFA window in such a limited timeframe was not feasible. The PFF had then suggested to play in November’s window but no official match was agreed upon,” a PFF source had told Geo earlier.
Despite the PFF’s stance, the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) took an unexpected step by announcing it would send a football team to Russia on its own initiative.
