Former Tottenham defender to boost Pakistan soccer

Pakistan will hire former Tottenham defender Graham Roberts as football consultant to improve their standard ahead of the Asian Games in China next month, an official said Friday.

“We are fortunate to have Roberts for two months as football consultant,” Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) secretary Ahmed Yar Lodhi told AFP.

“If all goes well with him and us, we can negotiate long term contract with him to help us as coach,” he said.

Pakistan were once counted among the top 10 Asian teams in the 1960s, but now lie at 162 in the FIFA world ranking issued in August this year.

The 51-year-old Roberts, who won two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup in 1984 with Tottenham, will be sponsored by a British-based Pakistani company for his two-month stint.

Lodhi said it would be a great boost for Pakistani football.

He said Roberts was a successful player and had vast coaching experience, but a lot depended on how he found Pakistan’s players.

“At the moment he doesn’t have any security reservations coming to Pakistan, so a lot of things will come into consideration when we offer him a long-term contract,” said Lodhi.

Lodhi hoped Roberts’ help would bring good results in the Asian Games, to be held in the Chinese city of Guangzhou next month.

Pakistan showed an improvement under their previous foreign coaches, Austrian George Kotten, who worked until last year, and Bahrain’s Ahmed Shardia in the mid-2000s.

Pakistan’s former interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat is the president of PFF.