Ashfaq says ready for talks with FIFA

KARACHI: Ashfaq Hussain Shah, who led the protest against the normalisation committee and took control of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) headquarters in Lahore, has said he is ready for talks with FIFA and other stakeholders.

The other day FIFA suspended PFF, saying the occupiers must leave the headquarters.

Football in the country had been run by FIFA-appointed normalization committee of PFF for the past 18 months with the main agenda to hold free, fair and transparent election of the federation.

“They even failed to give a roadmap to hold elections during the past 18 months,” Syed Ashfaq Hussain Shah told PPI. “But they have spent Rs210 million in that period holding only a single event that we could have held in less than five million,” he added.

“We will have audit of the expenses by the normalisation committee,” he said.

Ashfaq was elected as president of the federation two years ago under the Supreme Court directives. But a tussle between the previous PFF President Faisal Saleh Hayat group and Ashfaq group forced FIFA to intervene and appoint the normalisation committee in September 2019.

“We were the elected body but thinking about the betterment of football, we let the normalisation committee take over. But they disappointed us. Even a country’s election can be held in 90 days. What’s the big deal in that?” Ashfaq said.

But he added that his team was ready to talk to FIFA and all stakeholders to solve the issue.

He denied that any of the members of his team had threatened anyone.

Haroon Malik has accused that he was threatened by the Ashfaq-led protestors during the alleged hostile takeover of the PFF headquarters and that he had to break glass panel to escape.