Congress, NC on same page over Pak football future

Building of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Lahore can be seen in this image. — PFF website/File

ISLAMABAD: For the first time in a post-Haroon Malik Normalization Committee (NC) working, absolute majority of the

Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Congress members reposed trust in NC’s sincerity to hold free and fair PFF elections within the next two to three months. All the stakeholders appeared before the National Assembly sub-committee (in person or online) to confirm their resolve to hold PFF presidential elections and to hand the reins to the elected body.

Saud Hashmi and Shahid Khokhar who appeared before the committee online, confirmed that the NC was well aware of the given deadline. “We plan to hold the PFF elections within the next two to three months and have already taken Congress members in confidence on all steps we are planning to take,” Saud told the committee headed by Anjum Aqeel.

PFF Congress member and one of the favourites to take over as PFF President, Zahir Shah, and a few others from Punjab supported Saud Hashmi, maintaining that the NC has promised to take the NC members in confidence before finalising PFF president election rules. “We are in touch with the NC that promised us full recognition as far the election process and other formalities’ finalisation is concerned,” Zahir said during the meeting.

On women representatives’ membership, the NC added that those three were members now as these have already cast their votes. “The Congress members can decide the fate of these members staying within the constitutional ambit.”

The NA Committee members were also concerned about the NC’s ban on a few respected football community members including MNA Aamir Dogar. The NA Committee was told that the matter was with the PFF Disciplinary Committee.

“The disciplinary committee is reassessing all these bans on a person-to-person basis. The committee will scrutinize all these bans before deciding on these appeals,” an NC member said.

The NA sub-committee members called on the NC to take all the required measures to hand over the PFF reins to the elected body. For the first time after the establishment of PFF Congress following Club elections, both the NC and Congress members were seen backing each other. It was in sharp contrast of what was seen during Haroon Malik’s tenure as NC Chairman which would be remembered as the most controversial.