‘Clubs want more time to fulfil constitutional demands’

KARACHI: The football fraternity of the country has demanded that the FIFA-appointed PFF Normalisation Committee give it some more time so that all clubs could fulfil the constitutional demands and ensure their voting rights ahead of the PFF elections.

According to the PFF NC, the demand emerged when the football stakeholders were told by the PFF NC at a meeting in Lahore the other day that it would start district elections process from May 15.

Welcoming the participants, Chairman NC Haroon Malik, who was flanked by NC members Haris Azmat, Saud Hashmi and Shahid Niaz Khokhar, said that the PFF election process is in progress. He said that the club registration has been completed through a massive technology-based drive and club scrutiny will be completed in April after which the PFF district elections will be held.

In response, the clubs representatives urged the PFF NC to provide them more time in order to register themselves in the list of active clubs. “We do not want to miss the voting opportunity,” they said.

After several requests by the participants of the meeting for enabling the clubs to fulfil statutory requirements by extending the timelines for clubs’ registration, the Chairman NC has requested the football fraternity to nominate their representatives having legal expertise to form a committee which should then work closely with the FIFA NC so that the election process can be carried out at a speed in accordance with the PFF statutes.

The clubs representatives also stressed that NC should conduct a transparent physical scrutiny of the clubs to identify and eliminate the ghost entities from the system.

Saud Hashimi, Head of Pakistan Football Connect (PFC) Programme, briefed the participants about the club registration process which provides the basic structure for the election process. He also shared the data of the clubs which have come into the folder of PFF connect and the success story of ‘PFF at your doorsteps’ campaign in which a connect van is being sent to every corner of the country to register new football clubs.

NC member Shahid Niaz Khokhar briefed the participants on the salient features of the previous meeting which was held in the presence of FIFA and AFC joint mission during their Pakistan visit a few weeks ago.

The participants expressed their confidence in NC's efforts to resolve the deep-rooted problems of football of Pakistan. NC chairman and members reiterated their resolve to hold transparent elections at all levels and hand over the command of Pakistan football to the elected PFF congress.

It was unanimously decided to establish a representative committee of the football community to move swiftly towards the PFF elections while complying with the statutory requirements by the clubs.