Pakistan football team to play in India for first time since 2014

Pakistan’s national football team has been given visas for India, officials said, where they will take on the hosts in their first match on Indian soil since 2014.

Pakistan’s national football team has been given visas for India, officials said, where they will take on the hosts in their first match on Indian soil since 2014.

The South Asian neighbours will kick off the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship on Wednesday (June 21).

The two countries rarely play home matches against each other in any sport due to long-running political tensions made worse by the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and the scrapping of Indian-administered Kashmir’s special status in 2019.

The participation of Pakistan in the Bengaluru event has raised hopes Islamabad will take part in the ICC World Cup cricket tournament hosted by India later this year, having earlier threatened to boycott the event.

Haroon Malik, the president of the Pakistan Football Federation, told Al Jazeera that the visa approval was “a great sign and very significant” and required getting “no objection certificates” from both the Pakistani and Indian governments.