The Pakistan football team has arrived in India for the SAFF Championship, but due to travel delays and bureaucratic issues, more than half of the players will reach their base in Bengaluru just six hours before their match against India, which is scheduled to start at 7:30pm on June 21. The team had been playing in Mauritius, and the journey from there took 17 hours.
There were issues with the Pakistan Government in issuing a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the team to come to India for the tournament, and it was only on June 15 that they got the clearance.
Pakistan made several requests to the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) to reschedule the first game, but those were declined, with SAFF insisting that the match proceed as planned.
The team landed in Mumbai at 1am on Wednesday, after departing from Mauritius at 5:30 pm local time on Tuesday. However, due to a lack of available seats on a single flight, the squad was divided into two groups for the flight from Mumbai to Bengaluru. Unfortunately, the second group, consisting of 14 players, missed their flight due to delays at the airport.
“We landed in Mumbai at 1:30 am, but there were no officials at the passport control office,” said Hasnain Haider, Pakistan’s team manager, to ESPN. “They came after 30 minutes and gave us a few forms to fill out including the visa form, which we had already filled and submitted to the authorities before arriving in Mumbai.”