Daily Times

LAHORE: A Division Bench of Lahore High Court (LHC) has recognised the Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) elections held on June 30, 2015 (30-6-2015) with a verdict that the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is not competent to control, regulate or compel the PFF in this regard. With the decision of the LHC, Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat finds himself reinstated as the President of the PFF. The court also stated that the PSB is not competent to amend the PFF constitution or comply with the sports policy and that the elections of 30-6-15 stand restored. The administrator of the PFF has been asked immediately to relinquish charge and hand over the complete affairs of PFF to the elected body of 30-06-2015. Furthermore, the LHC has restrained PSB from interfering in the affairs of the PFF.

After a legal case spanning almost three years, Faisal Hayat has seemingly staved off the biggest threat to his reign as the country’s football chief. And now, with a verdict from the LHC in his favour, he has taken back the position of PFF President – he has held on to since 2003.

However, confusion persists with the court having also upheld an election of the Punjab Football Association (PFA) which was won by members of Faisal Hayat’s rival faction. For now the developments could lead to the FIFA ban on Pakistan lifted with the football’s world governing body having put the condition, when announcing the ban in October last year, that the suspension would be lifted if the PFF headquarters and its accounts were handed over to the Faisal Hayat-led federation.

But with Faisal Hayat’s two-year mandate given to him by FIFA in September 2015 to ratify the PFF statutes and hold fresh elections having already expired, it will be interesting to see what the global body does next. That September 2015 decision by FIFA’s now-disbanded executive committee came following a visit by a FIFA mission to the country to talk to the two warring factions of the PFF that were formed after a dispute in the run-up to its presidential election in June 2015. With Faisal Hayat’s term having expired, FIFA may decide to install a normalisation committee after it lifts the ban to hold fresh elections and resolve the crisis once and for all. The LHC has directed the administrator, appointed by it back in August 2015 to oversee day-to-day affairs till the issue was resolved, to “immediately hand over the control of PFF in terms of election result dated 30.6.2015”.

Published in Daily Times, March 1^st 2018.