Daily Times

LAHORE: World football body FIFA on Tuesday lifted the suspension it had imposed on Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) last year and reinstated ‘all of PFF’s membership rights, with immediate effect. The PFF had been embroiled in internal power struggle and legal wrangling the last few years, following which the Lahore High Court (LHC) had appointed an administrator to oversee the federation. But since the FIFA does not allow political meddling into regional federations’ affairs, it had suspended the PFF in October 2017. However, the court has since validated the PFF’s 2015 elections and asked its appointed administrator to vacate the PFF offices – an order FIFA was told has been implemented. As a result, the FIFA said in a statement: “The suspension of the PFF is lifted with immediate effect. This means that all of PFF’s membership rights have been reinstated, as defined in Article 13 of the FIFA Statutes, with immediate effect. Consequently, the PFF’s representative and club teams are again entitled to take part in international competitions.

The PFF’s members and officials may benefit from development programmes, courses and training from the FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Finally, the FIFA member associations may again enter into sporting contact with the PFF and/or its teams.”

Published in Daily Times, March 14^th 2018.