LAHORE        -     The FIFA’s Normalisation Committee (NC) proposes the PFF district elections from May 15, 2023 but Pakistan football community demands more time to comply with the PFF statutes to secure their voting right before the PFF elections kick off.

The development came during the second meeting of representatives of the football community belonging to varied school of thoughts from across the country, here at a local hotel, where PFF NC Chairman Haroon Malik has shown a strong will to kick off the PFF elections from May 15. Welcoming the participants, Haroon Malik, flanked with NC members Barrister Haris Azmat, Saud Hashimi and Shahid Niaz Khokhar, said that the PFF election process is well underway as the club registration has been completed through a massive technology-based drive while the club scrutiny will be completed in April, after which the PFF District Elections will be held. In response, the participants of the clubs urged PFF NC to provide more time to the clubs in order to register themselves on the list of active clubs.

“For now, we do not want to miss the voting opportunity.” After several requests by the participants of the meeting for enabling the clubs to fulfill statutory requirements by extending the timelines for clubs’ registration, the Chairman NC has requested the football fraternity members present in the meeting to nominate their representatives having legal expertise to form a committee, which should then work closely with the FIFA NC so that the election process can be carried out at a speedy pace in accordance with the PFF statutes. The house has also emphasized the FIFA NC to carry out transparent physical scrutiny of the clubs to identify and eliminate the ghost elements in the system.

Saud Hashimi, head of Pakistan Football Connect (PFC) Programme, informed about the club registration process, which provides the basic structure for the election process. He also shared the data of the clubs, which have come into the fold of PFF connect for the first time and the success story of ‘PFF at your doorsteps’ campaign in which a mobile van is being sent to every corner of the country to register new football clubs. NC member Shahid Niaz Khokhar briefed the house on the salient features of the previous meeting which was held in the presence of FIFA & AFC Mission during their Pakistan visit in January. The participants of the meeting belonging to all segments of the football community have bestowed their confidence in the NC’s endeavors to resolve the long-standing deep-rooted problems of football in Pakistan.

NC chairman and members have reiterated their determination to hold bottom-to-top free and transparent elections to hand over the command of Pakistan football to the elected PFF congress as per the PFF constitution. It was unanimously decided to establish a representative committee of the football community to move swiftly towards the PFF elections while complying with the statutory requirements of the clubs.