Football’s world governing body has finally stepped to enforce truce and normalisation in the Pakistan Football Federation, marred by factionalism and disuputes.
The Bureau of the FIFA Council has decided to appoint a normalisation committee for the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) in accordance with Article 14 Para 1(a) and Article 8 Para 2 of the FIFA Statutes, FIFA has stated in a Press release.
The decision follows observations of the recent FIFA/AFC fact-finding mission to Pakistan. The mission has concluded that only free, fair and transparent elections of the PFF executive committee would reunite the football stakeholders in Pakistan and set the basis for the development of football which has been at a standstill since 2015.
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The mandate of the normalisation committee will include the following:
- To run the Pakistan Football Federation’s daily affairs;
- To ensure the proper registration and scrutiny of the clubs in Pakistan;
- To draft and ratify, with the assistance of FIFA and the AFC, an electoral code for the PFF;
- To organise and conduct elections at district followed by provincial levels; and
- To organise and conduct the elections of a new PFF executive committee.
The normalisation committee will comprise of an adequate number of members to be identified by the FIFA administration, in consultation with the AFC and relevant local stakeholders. In line with the FIFA Governance Regulations, all members of the normalisation committee will be subject to an eligibility check.
The normalisation committee will act as an electoral committee, whose decisions are final and binding, and the specified period of time during which it will perform its functions will expire as soon as it has fulfilled all of its tasks but no later than nine months after its members have been officially appointed by FIFA.
FIFA and the AFC will now begin the task of identifying, interviewing and selecting the members of the normalisation committee – an update will be provided on that matter in due course.
The two warring factions in the PFF involve president Syed Ashfaq Hussain Shah, who was elected in December 2018 after a Pakistan Supreme Court decision, and former president Faisal Saleh Hayat, currently an elected Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice-president for the South Zone, sportsbusiness.com has reported.
Hayat-led faction enjoys the backing of the AFC, which in a statement has said, “The AFC Executive Committee promise their support to the ‘legitimately elected’ Pakistan Football Federation, which has been replaced by order of the country’s Supreme Court.”
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