PFF president should be from among elected members: Congress

ISLAMABAD: An absolute majority of the Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) Congress has urged to follow the traditional way to elect the women’s members as well, underlining criteria for eligibility of a candidate to contest elections for president PFF.

Well informed sources exclusively told ‘The News’ that 19 members of the PFF Congress (out of the House of 22) have called for giving the right to genuinely elected members (from provincial associations or Islamabad) to contest the PFF presidential elections.

“The right to contest the election for the president PFF should be given only to those members who are elected and are part of the provincial or Islamabad football associations. It is the genuine right of these elected members to contest the elections for the highest PFF post,” as many as 19 members have agreed on adopting criteria and have sent their proposal to the PFF Normalization Committee duly signed by all.

However, a different version of criteria to be adopted for the PFF president election has come through FIFA and AFC representatives who held a meeting with provincial association representatives on Wednesday evening.

FIFA and AFC proposed that any football official who has rendered services for promotion of the game at national or international level for two years should be allowed to contest the PFF president election, a proposal to which an absolute majority of Congress members expressed opposition. The criteria of eligibility to contest PFF president elections will come under discussion during the PFF Extraordinary meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Friday online). The Congress members have submitted their proposals with the NC well before the Wednesday meeting with FIFA/AFC officials.

The FIFA representatives were silent on three women representatives’ elections as Congress members. Though it is believed NC Chairman Haroon Malik has notified three woman members without consulting Congress, 17 out of 22 members recommended that Congress members should be given powers to elect women through voting.

The PFF Congress meeting on Friday would take up these two important issues besides making required constitutional changes to which all parties are agreed. The issues of discussion and confrontation would be as to what should be the criteria of eligibility of a candidate to contest PFF president elections and what would be the proper way to conduct women’s representative elections. On the both fronts, an absolute majority of the elected Congress members feel that it is their right to elect women members as it was a tradition in the past.