Pakistan football officials move to address FIFA suspension

Pakistan’s suspension matter is more likely to be resolved soon as Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) Extraordinary Congress has been convened on February 27 at Lahore to discuss the revision of the PFF Constitution.

According to sources Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalization Committee has sought input from FIFA and AFC to make it clear whether they would attend the meeting or not.

“I cannot confirm. We have asked them and if they want to, so inshaAllah will happen,” a well-placed source told Nukta.

“In an effort to quickly put an end to FIFA’s suspension PFF has called an Extraordinary Congress for the third time on February 27, 2025, in Lahore,” the PFF Normalization Committee said in a statement.

“The agenda for the congress includes revision of the PFF Constitution 2014 as per recommendations from FIFA and AFC and approval of the minutes of the Extraordinary Congress meeting held on January 24, 2025,” the statement said.

The PFF Normalization Committee further clarified that Pakistan’s participation in the Asian Cup Qualifiers is subject to lifting of Pakistan’s suspension in time.

In the qualifiers Pakistan will face Syria in their away Group E game on March 25. Afghanistan and Myanmar are the others in Pakistan’s group. The group matches will be held on home and away basis.

“The Congress meeting has been convened in direct response to the FIFA Council’s letter dated February 6, 2025, which states that the suspension of the PFF can only be lifted upon the approval of the revised constitution in line with the FIFA and AFC’s directives,” NC said.

The first extraordinary meeting of the newly-elected Congress was held at Lahore on November 19. It was also physically attended by a delegation from FIFA and the AFC. However, the meeting was postponed after representatives of a few departments, whose congress membership had been suspended for not fielding its teams in the required number of events, forced their way into the meeting hall.

On this foreign delegation and NC’s members discussed this in isolation and decided to postpone the meeting. The matter was also referred to the PFF’s disciplinary committee and it latter heard the concerned departments and their membership was restored except PIA which did not pursue its case.

On January 24 an extraordinary meeting was convened again. It was a virtual meeting. The proposed amendments were discussed and Congress rejected them which created a deadlock which also led to Pakistan’s suspension.

It will be interesting to see how Congress deals with the matter in the coming meeting. There is a lot of pressure on Congress. FIFA and AFC want at every cost to amend the Article 38 of the 2014 PFF Constitution and 11 more statutes, also including the one which relates to the time-frame in which the elections are held.

FIFA, according to sources, also wants to reduce the elections time-frame.

The Article 38 is more important. It defines the eligibility criteria for the PFF’s president. FIFA wants to make it more democratic so that more people could opt for contesting the PFF’s presidency election.

Congress on the other hand wants to limit it to the 36 Executive Committee members, eight each of the four federating units and four from Islamabad Football Association (IFA).