ISLAMABAD, Mar 24 (APP):The office-bearers of Islamabad Football Association (IFA) on Wednesday urged the FIFA-installed Normalization Committee (NC) of Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) to immediately announce the election schedule otherwise they reserved the right to opt for an alternative strategy to safeguard as what they said the football interest in the country.
“FIFA has set a target for the Normalization Committee to hold elections before June 30, this year. But the committee has so far failed to announce any schedule. We urge the committee to fulfill its obligations without any further delay and announce a roadmap for elections.
If it fails do so we’ll announce our future line of action in the next few days,” IFA president Chaudhry Muhammad Saleem told a news briefing at a hotel here. Flanked by Syed Sharafat Hussain Bukhari, PSO to the erstwhile president of PFF Syed Ashfaq Hussain Shah, Syed Tanveer Ahmed, vice president of IFA and Raja Masood, member IFA Working Committee, he said the NC was holding tournaments in the country, but that was not its mandate. “It was tasked to hold elections in a free and fair way, but unfortunately it has taken no practical step towards that direction. It is busy in holding tournaments, which is not its task,” he said.
He claimed that the chairman PFF NC was drawing a monthly salary of $6000 from FIFA, while each of the four members was getting $4000. He said they had pocketed millions of rupees since their appointment and that was why they were not willing to leave the lucrative positions.
Ashfaq was elected PFF president in 2018 in elections held under the apex court decision. However, he along with his body handed over the charge to the FIFA-installed NC in September 2019 on the condition that it would hold fair and transparent elections. Pakistan’s Canada-based Haroon Malik is Chairman of the committee.
Speaking on the occasion, Syed Sharafat said that Haroon was trying to get FIFA’s consent to revise the PFF statutes. “But any such attempt will have serious consequences as an individual or a committee can’t change the statutes.
“It’s only the Congress or General Body of PFF, which can do that. So our advice to the committee is to do the job, which it has been entrusted to, and abstain from unconstitutional moves,” he said.
He said the Supreme Court had given a mandate to Syed Ashfaq Shah till 2022. “He [Ashfaq Shah] has convened a meeting of Congress and Working Committee on March 26 in Islamabad. We’ll take important decisions in that meeting,” he added.
