POA’s efforts to end football stalemate go in vain

ISLAMABAD: All the efforts by the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) to convince the PFF Normalisation Committee and Pakistan Football Federation’s officials to sit on a table and look for a viable solution of the football crisis went fruitless after Haroon Malik’s reluctance to do so.

The efforts were initiated by POA secretary Mohammad Khalid Mehmood on the instructions of POA president Lt Gen (r) Arif Hasan on Tuesday morning.

During the conversation with ‘The News’, Normalisation Committee head Haroon Malik expressed his willingness to accept the POA’s mediation, saying that if anyone from the POA would approach him, he would be ready for the negotiations aiming at ending the stalemate. The POA secretary later approached the two parties and offered mediation what he called “in the best interest of the country and its football”.

“The POA president wanted to end the stalemate by offering mediation. God forbids if anything happens to Pakistan football, it will be only the game’s loss and not the loss of any individual. We must keep the game above all the persons and personalities,” the POA secretary said.

Khalid added that when he took up the matter with Haroon Malik, he told that he would get back to the POA after consulting the other two members of the Normalisation Committee.

“Later, he told that he could not come up as the other members are not in favour of this and the committee cannot move without FIFA’s instructions.”

PFF headed by Ashfaq Hussain Shah, however, continuously stayed in touch with the POA.

“We have communicated to the POA that we are ready for table talks in the presence of POA representatives,” Sharafat Hussain Bokhari, Staff Officer to president PFF, told the POA secretary.

Talking to ‘The News’, Sharafat said the PFF occupied the Football House under the Supreme Court’s supervised elections.

“After getting the unanimous consent from the PFF and under the mandate given through the elections supervised by the Supreme Court, we have occupied the FIFA Football House. We are here to stay. However, we are ready to accommodate the Normalisation Committee in its efforts to conduct free and fair elections of the PFF by June 2021. The committee will be extended all possible help.”