SAFF Championship 2023: List of foreign-born players in Pakistan squad

The addition of these players will be a shot in the arm for the Shaheens.

Currently, India does not allow Person of Indian Origin (PIO) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) players to represent India. High Court of Delhi recently refused an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to represent the country on the national level. The biggest ongoing story is that of Yan Dhanda, who spoke to Khel Now in a series of interviews about his predicament.

However, Pakistan have decided that they will take no such step and did allow overseas citizens to their football team set-up. In the 28-man probable squad announced by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), 9 players are foreign-born. Of these nine, four were born in the United Kingdom and five were born in Denmark.

These are the 9 foreign-born players that feature in the squad

Easah Suliman

Otis Khan 

Rahis Nabi

Abdul Arshad 

Harun Hamid

Abdullah Iqbal

Adnan Mohammed

Hasan Bashir

Yousuf Butt

Let us take a look at the first three players, who are the most exciting additions and hold immense promise, not just among the foreign-born group but within the entirety of the Pak Shaheens’ squad.

Easah Suliman

Easah Suliman was born in Birmingham and is a product of the Aston Villa academy. While representing England at the youth level (under-16, under-17 and under-19), he became the first person of Asian heritage to captain the English national side at any level. 

Suliman grabbed attention when he started every game as centre-back for the victorious English side in the 2017 Under-19 European Championship. He also opened the scoring against Portugal in the final with a header.

The 25-year old currently on loan at Vilafranquense is set to play his first international match for Pakistan in their SAFF championship opener against India in Bengaluru.

Otis Khan

Otis Khan, who currently plies his trade as an attacking midfielder at Grimsby Town, confirmed his decision to represent Pakistan in 2022 seeing that his opportunities to represent England were dwindling.

Khan started his career at the Manchester United academy and then played for the academy of Sheffield United but several years without breakthrough in the lower divisions of English football meant that his career has not taken off the way he had planned it to.

The 27-year old is eligible to represent Pakistan as his grandfather was born there.

Rahis Nabi

Rahis Nabi debuted for the Men in Green on 6th June, 2019 in a 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Cambodia. His brothers Samir Nabi and Adil Nabi are also footballers with the former having featured in the squad at Bahrain that faced Cambodia. The 24 year old currently plays as number ten at Redditch United.

While India could similarly benefit from the talent pool and foreign exposure that such an opportunity brings to the squad, Igor Stimac has already echoed the sentiment and the hurdle is India’s criteria for dual-citizenship as opposed to any FIFA or football related concerns.