Why can’t Pakistan play FIFA World Cup?
To qualify for the FIFA World Cup, you have to go through the qualifying round first. The qualifying round is divided into 6 major sections.
UEFA
Union of European Football Associations This group includes all European countries. England, Scotland, France, Estonia, Russia etc.
AFC
Asian Football Confederation – includes teams that make up most of Asia and includes Australia and surrounding countries. Teams like India, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, China N+S Korea etc. are included.
CAF
Confederation of African Football – Football teams from Africa. Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Swaziland, Mozambique etc. are included.
CONMEBOL
South American Football Confederation – includes all teams from South America. Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, etc.
CONCACAF
Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football – which includes USA, Mexico, Canada and a whole host of Caribbean islands – Honduras, Aruba, Bahamas etc.
Pakistan is a part of AFC. A total of 46 teams participated in the AFC World Cup Qualifying. Teams are ranked based on the FIFA world rankings. Pakistan’s rank is 188 which places them at 43rd position out of 46.
For the first qualifying round, teams ranked 1 through 34 received an automatic bye into the second round. Teams ranked 35th to 46th played each other in a two-legged tie.
Pakistan (43) was tied against Yemen (37). The first tie was played at the Grand Hamad Stadium in Qatar, with the home side being Yemen. The game ended 3-1 against Yemen. The return match took place at the Khalifa Sports City Stadium in Bahrain. The score ended 0-0.
The final score on aggregate ended up being 3-1 for Yemen. Yemen advanced to the second qualifying round and Pakistan was abolished.
In summary, Pakistan is fit to play in the World Cup…if they qualify.
Harry Crewalt writes that Pakistan has as much right to participate in the World Cup as any other FIFA member. As is usual for such an event, there is a qualification process (for all teams except the host).
Why can’t Pakistan play FIFA World Cup?
In the case of the current World Cup, Pakistan played a home-and-away series against Yemen at the start of the Asian qualifiers and lost 3-1 on aggregate. This meant that Yemen progressed to the next round of qualification, and Pakistan’s campaign was over.
Yemen, admittedly, didn’t progress much, finishing bottom of the group in which they were drawn.
In short, when you have 40 teams from across Asia trying to make it to the World Cup, there is a lot of qualifying, and Pakistan have to fight as hard as any other team.
