LAHORE: The action of attack and taking over of Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) House on Saturday has sent a very negative message to the entire football world about Pakistan.
According to PFF Normalisation Committee Chairman Haroon Malik on Saturday, (former) PFF President Ashfaq Hussain, flanked by Sardar Naveed Haider Khan and the entire group, attacked and taken over the PFF House from the FIFA-installed Normalisation Committee and not only this, the PFF NC staff physically harassed and were held hostage. Such a pathetic action taken by Ashfaq and his group.
Ashfaq was the same person, who respectfully accepted the FIFA decision of installing PFF Normalisation Committee and handed over the PFF House and Office to this committee to hold fair elections within given time frame. But the NC, on the other hand, also failed to take pragmatic steps towards conducting fair and transparent elections as the previous NC Chairman Hamza Khan literally failed to start the election process fairly and then after taking over, Haroon Malik-led PFF NC also started conducting football activities throughout the country instead of doing the actual task of holding PFF elections, which invited The wrath of Ashfaq and group and forced this to take this (illegal) action (according to FIFA).
Now the stance taken by Ashfaq behind this move is that, he claims that he has his mandate till 2022 and when one and a half year ago, he was PFF President, he very respectfully accepted the decision of FIFA to install the Normalisation Committee with the mandate of holding PFF Elections in six months time, but after a lapse of more than one year, the FIFA-installed Normalisation Committee(s) badly failed to take the basic steps towards the Elections, which according to him, couldn’t be held till June 30, 2021, the end date of Normalisation Committee.
Ashfaq and group claimed that the installation of PFF Normalisation Committee is nothing but just a wastage of time, which has badly failed in taking active steps towards holding PFF elections rather they succeeded in wasting hefty amount of millions of dollars on their salaries for doing nothing regarding the actual mandate but wasting on organizing the football activities, which is not their main task. Such things just frustrated them, who claimed to be the real stakeholders of Pakistan Football, and during their Congress meeting, they discussed everything and finally decided to take this extreme step, which, according to NC officials, isn’t less then a Black Day for Pakistan football, as it will not invite the wrath of the FIFA towards Pakistan Football.
What will now happen seems to be the suspension of Pakistan Football Federation but according to sources, the suspension is now a small word in the dictionary of FIFA, as their directly installed committee has been attacked and harrased and it will compel the world football governing body to take strict action against the attackers as well as the PFF. Overall, now it’s completely on the FIFA, which will now decide about the fate of Pakistan football, but overall, whatever happened on Saturday (March 28, 2021) isn’t good for Pakistan football especially for footballers and field umpires and referees as well as the team officials because it will once again put Pakistan football far behind and badly harm it in the longer run. So it can be concluded that the March 28, 2021 is the “Black Day” for Pakistan football which has bleaked the future of Pakistan football.
