LAHORE: Pakistan football stakeholders on Tuesday urged the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalisation Committee to avoid engaging companies relating to men’s and women’s football and futsal leagues and instead prioritise elections.
The stakeholders said that NC’s mandate will expire on December 15. They said that it should focus on completing the elections instead of taking interest in engaging companies for leagues which it cannot hold due to shortage of time.
They said that it is the right of the new elected body which must deal with such matters. A former PFF official Naveed Haider said that it is not the mandate of NC to do such things.
“Your mandate is to conduct elections and leave,” Naveed told The News. “You have been in office for the last three years and so far you have not held elections. And the elections which have been conducted so far are also illegal,” Naveed said.
“It’s a one-man show and it’s not NC. NC is going to hold this league now to counter franchise-based Pakistan Football League (PFL) which already has been launched,” Naveed said. “You stayed for three years in office and you did not hold the PPFL and PFL (second-tier league) which were part of the calendar. And he (NC chairman) is going to just put hurdles in the way of the franchise league,” Naveed said.
“This is detrimental to football fraternity as coaches, officials, players and sponsors are going to link with the PFL. It is to just put confusion in the market and people will think twice. I think it is an effort to jeopardise the franchise league,” Naveed said. Meanwhile, a senior football coach told The News that engaging companies at a time when NC has just five months at its disposal looks dubious.
“NC can only conduct day-to-day football affairs besides holding the PFF elections and it cannot go beyond that,” the official said. On July 3, NC issued a statement which said: “The PFF has announced a Request-For-Proposal (RFP) to onboard Financial Advisor who will assist PFF in awarding the right to operate football (men and women senior) and futsal leagues. The PFF is receiving expressions of interest (EOI) from reputed advisory firms and consultants.
“Interested firms can access the complete bidding documents on the PFF website www.pff.com.pk and attend the pre-bid conference at Football House, Lahore, on July 15, 2024 (in-person or virtually) to go through the bid documents and have relevant questions answered.”
This correspondent understands that the district elections process has almost been completed. It was learnt that in four districts in Balochistan re-polling is going to be held. Sources said that in the next few days the things will be folded at the districts level. The next step is provincial elections. Sources said that elections rules and regulations have been drafted and are awaiting approval from AFC and FIFA.
Sources said that after its formal approval provincial elections process will begin. Sources said that NC plans to hold provincial elections by first week of August.
