AFC requests FIFA to extend PFF’s mandate

KARACHI: Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has formally written a letter to FIFA, requesting it to extend Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) mandate to June 2019.

The AFC Member Associations’ Task Force had recommended to the AFC in its ExCO meeting in Manama, Bahrain, recently that a request should be made to FIFA for extension of the PFF mandate to four years so that meaningful reforms could be undertaken. Endorsing the task force’s recommendation, the AFC on May 17 formally wrote a letter to FIFA, requesting it to extend the tenure of the PFF until June 2019. FIFA in September 2015 gave PFF two years to revise its constitution and hold fresh elections by September 2017. But the instructions could not be followed due to legal issues the PFF had been facing and because of its frozen accounts.

“The AFC Executive Committee at its meeting on May 7, 2017, in Manama, Bahrain, unanimously ratified the recommendations made by the AFC Member Associations’ Task Force,” the AFC letter to FIFA said.

“It’s an official request to FIFA from the AFC to extend the current mandate of the PFF to June 2019 to ensure meaningful reforms can be undertaken.”

The AFC has also recommended holding a “joint statutes revision workshop” for the PFF stakeholders.

The AFC has further written that a joint delegation of FIFA and AFC should meet Pakistan government and apprise it of the severe consequences of interference in the affairs of the PFF.

Pakistan’s football matters remain in court. Last month the Supreme Court set aside the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) double bench February 2 decision and referred the case back to it with the instructions to decide it on merit. The hearing is yet to begin.

Since April 2015 Pakistan has not been able to participate in any international event. And the country has twice missed its Premier League.