Congress votes overwhelmingly to reject changes in constitution

ISLAMABAD: The newly-elected Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) Congress overwhelmingly (with more than two-third majority) rejected changes in the federation’s constitution, confirming that the next presidential elections will be contested under the existing 2014 Constitution.

The online Congress meeting Friday evening voted by 19 to 6, confirming that the existing constitution will be followed to complete all the formalities in nomination, elections, and voting to elect a new president PFF.

The amendments proposed by the PFF’s Normalisation Committee (NC) were to allow everyone having served two years in football (in any capacity) to contest the PFF president’s elections. Another amendment was to bind the members for open voting rather secret balloting.

The Congress with 19-6 votes rejected all the amendments, maintaining that rules inked in 34-38 clauses of the 2014 Constitution should be followed to elect the new president. “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 association. It is the genuine right of these elected members to contest the elections for the highest PFF post,” as many as 19 members voted in favour with six including three women members (elected by NC) voting against it.

The Congress members’ having more than two-third majority also turned down open voting, maintaining the secret voting clause that was there in the 2014 constitution will be followed. A few other amendments were also rejected.

This correspondent has learnt from the sources privy to the meeting that it was sort of a take-all or leave-all scenario. “The NC has asked the members prior to start of the Friday meeting to either accept all the amendments or to reject all as there will be no pick and choose. So 19 members out of the 25 rejected the amendments,” the source added.

It is believed that those six members supported amendments including three women (elected by NC), one women champions team, one referee, and one vote from Punjab. All others (19 in all) including provincial and departments representatives rejected the amendments.

Now the NC will have to follow the existing 2014 constitution to conduct PFF president election through the mentioned process. Meanwhile, the official NC’s handout did not mention the results of the voting conducted during the Friday Congress meeting.

The handout says: “The newly-elected Congress of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) held an extraordinary online meeting, attended by 25 Congress members. The meeting was convened by PFF President Haroon Ahmed Malik. Senior officials from FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also participated as observers.

The agenda of the meeting was to bring a few amendments to some clauses of the PFF statutes. Before the meeting began, the acting General Secretary of the PFF Muhammad Shahid Niaz Khokhar confirmed that the quorum was complete.” Earlier, the extraordinary meeting of the PFF Congress scheduled on November 19 was postponed due to objections raised by some Congress members.