Pakistan to hold camp for AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers from June 1

The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalization Committee has initially decided to hold the national football team’s camp from June 1 at the Jinnah Stadium Islamabad to prepare for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup Group E Qualifiers opener against Myanmar to be held on June 10.

According to well-connected sources, the PFF NC has planned to hold the camp at Islamabad for a few days as English coach Stephen Constantine wants to get a few more days for training.

Sources said NC also plans to shift this camp to Myanmar on June 5 which will enable the team to get a few days offshore training opportunity before its opener against Myanmar.

Initially, Pakistan was supposed to host Myanmar for June 10 show but both nations agreed on a re-adjustment and now Pakistan will host Myanmar for its return leg in Islamabad on March 31, 2026.

Both reached a mutual understanding because of the forthcoming PFF elections scheduled to be held on May 27 at Lahore.

FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) officials will also attend that meeting to be held at the Pearl Continental Hotel.

The elections were, earlier, scheduled for May 20 but were postponed for a few days due to logistics issues because of the tension between Pakistan and India as foreign delegates also had to come to Pakistan.

Nukta has learnt that NC has submitted a list of 30 players with the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for getting NOC from the state. Sources said that 11 foreign-based players are also there on the list.

Sources said that no surprise may be seen in the list and mostly those players have been invited for the camp who have already been part of the national team since the 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers process conducted under Stephen and before that the building up process under former Pakistan head coach Shehzad Anwar.

Afghanistan and Syria are the other teams in Pakistan’s group.

As many as 24 nations are set to fight in the qualifiers third round for the final six spots in the AFC Asian Cup. They have been put into six groups.

Group A carries Philippines, Tajikistan, Timor Leste and Maldives. Lebanon, Bhutan, Yemen and Brunei have been clubbed in Group B while Group C features India, Hong Kong, Bangladesh and Singapore. Turkmenistan, Thailand, Chinese Taipei and Sri Lanka are in Group D while Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar form Group E. The Group F carries Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal and Laos.

The winners of each group will qualify for the Asian Cup.