The FIFA Council has extended the mandate of the Normalisation Committee for the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) until 15th December 2024.
“The Council confirmed that the mandate of the Normalisation Committee for the Pakistan Football Federation will be extended until 15 December 2024 to allow for the completion of the existing mandate and electoral process,” said the FIFA press release on Thursday.
It further added: “The FIFA Council has unanimously approved the Annual Report 2023, which confirms the organization’s exceptionally healthy and sustainable situation, with record investment in football development of USD 2.25 billion earmarked for the entire 2023-2026 cycle as part of the FIFA Forward 3.0 Programme. This represents an almost sevenfold increase in football development investment compared to the development programmes in place before 2016.
“The Annual Report, which was duly approved by the FIFA Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee and the FIFA Finance Committee, will be distributed to all 211 member associations and submitted to the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok on Friday, 17 May 2024 for final approval,” read the press release.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Haroon Malik-led NC of the PFF completed its first tenure till 30th June 2023 and later on, it was extended till 15th March 2024. During this tenure, the initiative of the first advanced electoral procedure in District Football Associations’ elections was taken by the NC, strictly following the statutes of the AFC and FIFA.
The DFA elections will be followed by provincial and PFF elections that will be contested on the ballot system. The election process is running smoothly and the PFF NC’s entire focus is on completing DFA elections purely on merit, making them fair and transparent. In this regard, most of the scrutiny has been completed. On the other hand, the Pakistan Football Referee Association (PFRA) Election has also been done and it can be hoped that the entire election process will be fair and transparent.
During its tenure till 15th March 2024, the Haroon Malik-led PFF NC held the first-ever Pakistan Football Summit with guests from FIFA and AFC. Besides this, it managed to conduct 36 international matches, providing the best opportunities to the national men and women players to exhibit their prowess in home and away matches and also get better rewards for their services to this country and especially to its football.
Another good initiative taken by this NC is the Pakistan U16 team that reached the SAFF U16 semifinals in Bhutan while the national U19 team also played well and succeeded in making it to the semifinals of the SAFF U19 in Nepal.
Pakistan men’s national football also played out their best and managed to move into the Round 2 of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers which is for the first time in Pakistan football’s history. Now FIFA World Cup Qualifiers round 2 home and away matches are being contested according to schedule and the next assignment of the Pakistan men’s football team is to take on the Jordan team on March 21, 2024, at Jinnah Stadium Islamabad. The boys are training hard under the able coaching and guidance of Coach Stephen Constantine and it can be hoped that the Men in Green will give tough time to their strong opponents – Jordan.