Congress rejects proposed amendments in PFF constitution

The newly-elected Congress of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) on Friday rejected the proposed amendments in the 2014 PFF Constitution with overwhelming majority.

In a virtual meeting of the PFF Congress, also attended by representatives of FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC), FIFA, through its appointed Normalization Committee, proposed the required amendments in 12 Statutes of the 2014 PFF Constitution.

As per regulations, Congress either had to reject them in totality or accept them as a whole. And after some debate Congress rejected them with overwhelming 19-6 majority.

This correspondent learnt that three women members, Pakistan Football Referees Association (PFRA), national champion women club and one other person accepted the amendments in totally while 19 members rejected them.

FIFA told Congress that after rejection of the proposed amendments now they will have to go back to the 2014 Constitution for the PFF’s elections. It means that the elections process will now take more time.

The PFF Normalization Committee had got recently two months extension until February 15 and it may now get another extension if the elections are held as per 2014 PFF Constitution.

The source said that the representatives from both FIFA and AFC were present in the meeting held virtually.

The Article 38 of the PFF Constitution was the talking point initially but other statutes were also brought in for amendment. Congress initially accepted six and rejected six but it was told by FIFA that they will either accept them in totality or reject them. But finally the amendments were rejected.

This development will also help former PFF president and renowned politician Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat to contest the PFF’s president elections.

The 2014 PFF Constitution Article 38 says: “Candidate for the office of the President PFF shall have played an active role as member PFF Congress, Member PFF Executive Committee, PFF Elected Official, AFC, FIFA for at least 2 of the Preceding 5 years before being proposed as a candidate (i.e. The candidate for President PFF shall have been the member PFF Congress, PFF Executive and PFF Elected Official, AFC, FIFA Official / Member Committee for at least 2 of the preceding last 5 years.”

Earlier, on November 19 the PFF Extraordinary Congress meeting had been convened at Lahore’s Pearl Continental Hotel but it was postponed when a few representatives of departments forced their way into the meeting hall telling the meeting that it could not be proceeded without their presence as they are also the Congress members.

On this FIFA and AFC delegation held a meeting with the PFF Normalization Committee and they decided that the meeting should be postponed. They rather referred the case to the PFF’s disciplinary committee which latter decided the case in favor of departments.

Barring PIA, which did not pursue its case, the Congress membership of Navy, PAF, Police and Railways was restored following their proper hearing conducted by the PFF’s disciplinary committee.

Five departments including PAF, Navy, Police, Railways and PIA had been suspended by NC as Congress members for failure to field their teams in the required number of events. And they had not been invited to the November 19 meeting which was also attended by Rolf Tanner, Head of MA Governance at FIFA, Niren Mukherjee, Head of the Deputy Secretary's Office in the Member Associations Division of AFC and Purushottam Kattel, Head of the South Asian Unit at AFC.