Naveed to challenge his suspension as PFA president

KARACHI: Former Punjab Football Association (PFA) president Naveed Haider has decided to challenge his suspension as provincial chief in near future.

“I have got the services of a reputed law firm at Lahore and intends to challenge my suspension as I feel that my suspension was illegal,” Naveed told ‘The News’.

“And the subsequent reports after my suspension in newspapers is my character assassination. This is something which I cannot tolerate after providing such a good service for football promotion for so many years. Some individuals, because of political animosity against me, could stoop so low, I did not imagine. My lawyers are preparing the case and the concerned would be served notices in due course,” he said.

“I will also raise this issue at the FIFA and AFC level. The time has come to take action,” he was quick to add.

Naveed had been suspended by the PFA Congress for five years in May 2019.

The Punjab Normalisation Committee endorsed the suspension recently.

“My suspension was declared as invalid. The suspension issue which they had forwarded at the time of PFF elections to the RO of the electoral committee appointed by the Supreme Court in December 2018 was rejected. And I was allowed to contest the elections and then was elected as the vice-president of PFF,” he said.

“And the subsequent meeting in which they labelled the five-year suspension as illegal because the base has been contradicted as it has not been done as per the PFF Constitution and due process was not followed. And the most interesting thing is that I have not received anything in writing. How can the so-called Normalisation Committee of Punjab uphold that illegal suspension. Had I received any suspension communique I would have appealed against that. The suspension authority is rested with the disciplinary committee. It can forward any complaint against any individual or member of the PFF or any provincial association and the committee can summon and take action and so nothing like that happened,” Naveed explained.

“This was illegal. I don’t acknowledge any suspension and I am still the elected president of PFA,” Naveed said.

“Interestingly one of my vice-presidents of PFA has given a legal affidavit in the court of law that he was neither present in any such meeting nor did I sign any suspension order. Furthermore, the PFA vice-presidents have no authority to rake any such action. They could only send their complaints to the Disciplinary Committee of PFF for any action which was never done,” he added.