United Victory’s forward, Ali (Chumpu) Haisham, Maziya Sports and Recreation’s (S&R’s) mid-fielder, Ibrahim (Ibbe) Waheed Hassan and Maziya’s defender, Ahmed (Lily) Abdulla have been selected for the SAFF Championship tournament’s preliminary squad.

On the 23rd of August, a national team preliminary squad of 31 members were formed in time for the SAFF Championship tournament to be held in October. After these three players were denied the opportunity to be part of the squad, they have now been accepted, increasing the number of members in the squad to 34.

Chumpu was first selected for the national team for the joint qualifications of the FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup and the first match he ever played, wearing the national team jersey, was the match Maldives lost to China in the joint qualification’s tournament. He remained in the top 11 during the match against China and the match against Philippines.

Second player selected for the squad, Ibbe, was also selected for the joint qualifications of the FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup. However, he had quit the national team that time for personal reasons.

Furthermore, the last time Lily received an opportunity to be a part of the national squad was being coached by Darren Stewart and had played as a member of the national team until the end of 2017.

While speaking at the press conference held in the National Football Stadium on Thursday, the national team’s coach, Ali Suzain stated that after a squad of 30 players were selected, a 31st player, Mohamed Ajufaan was chosen to replace Maziya’s Samooh (Samutte) Ali after he was injured. Suzain then stated that an additional three were picked after many discussions with coaches of different clubs.

This time, the Maldives is to take part in the SAFF Championship tournament with a complete local coaching team. While the tournament is to be held from the 1st of October to the 16th in the Maldives, the national team is to camp in Qatar from September 10th onwards to prepare for the tournament.