AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has said that AFC had decided to allot the 2014 AFC U-16 Championship qualifiers to Pakistan due to the rising popularity of the sport in the South Asian country.
The AFC president said on AFC website,
“We are following the rise in popularity of football in Pakistan and we are confident that the AFC U-16 Championship qualifiers will give a further boost to the efforts carried out by the Pakistan Football Federation,”
