Pakistan's return to international football delayed as SAFF Championship postponed.

Byline: Umaid Wasim

KARACHI -- Pakistan's wait for a return to international football goes on.

This time, however, it isn't due to the turmoil that has plagued the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) for the last several years but due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the latest sporting casualty of which was September's SAFF Championship.

The South Asian Football Federation announced on Monday that it was postponing the region's marquee tournament to next year while it will decide on the fate of its three youth tournaments, also slated to take place this year, in September.

The decision was made after the general secretaries from SAFF's seven member associations met on a video call to discuss the rising number of virus cases in South Asia. This year's SAFF Championship was to be hosted by Bangladesh from Sept 7-19.

Pakistan haven't played a single competitive match since June last year, when they lost to Cambodia over two legs in the first round of Asia's joint qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 AFC Asian Cup.

'The South Asian Football Federation held a meeting today via Zoom with its member associations' general secretaries regarding the SAFF Competitions,' SAFF said in a news release.

'The respective general secretaries gave their views regarding the Covid-19 challenges and opinions regarding the SAFF competitions scheduled to be held this year.

'Hence taking into account SAFF has decided in principle to postpone SAFF Championship to 2021.

'In regards to the youth competitions [SAFF U-15 Championship in August, SAFF U-15 Women's Championship in September and SAFF U-18 Women's Championship in October], they have also been postponed till the next review meeting in early...

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