Daily Times

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have suspended their funding to the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF). The decision by both Asian and world bodies has been taken in the wake of a newly-elected body led by Ashfaq Hussain Shah taking over its Pakistan affiliate on the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan at the fag end of last year. The decision has left the PFF high and dry. Both FIFA and AFC have said that the court-ordered election of the PFF is tantamount to third-party interference. “Due to the current situation at the PFF, FIFA can confirm that funding from the FIFA Forward Programme has currently been suspended,” a spokesperson for FIFA was quoted as saying. “We have no further comment on the matter and that any further updates will be communicated in due course.” It is most likely that FIFA’s Members Association Committee will decide further course of action.

Ahead of the election last month, FIFA had said that any election of the PFF on the orders of the Supreme Court would be a contravention of the FIFA statutes. It also threatened that Pakistan could be suspended for the second time in two years following the six-month ban on the PFF for the same breach from October 2017 to March last year. In September last year, FIFA had given its recognised president Faisal Saleh Hayat a mandate till March 2020 to conduct fresh elections after reviewing the PFF statutes.

Last week, Ashfaq disclosed at a news conference that the PFF was faced with a cash crisis since taking control from Hayat, alleging that his predecessor had returned funds amounting to $530,000 back to FIFA and AFC. It has been reported that the PFF had received $1,880,000 from FIFA and $750,000 from the AFC since March last year, when the Supreme Court restored Hayat as PFF chief whilst also ordering him to hold fresh elections following a dispute that began in 2015.

Out of that amount, the PFF had spent $2,100,000 till the end of last year,it was reported. Ashfaq had called Hayat returning the amount to FIFA and AFC as a “criminal move” as he’d been ordered by the SC to give an account of every financial transaction by the PFF. Both FIFA and AFC have not confirmed whether any amount had been returned to them. Ashfaq had last week stated that his body will look to other avenues to raise funds and PFF vice-president Sardar Naveed Haider Khan confirmed on Wednesday that several options were being looked into. With a ban looming, Sardar Naveed was hopeful that FIFA would send a fact-finding committee to the country to confirm that last month’s PFF elections under the orders of the SC were held according to the PFF statutes.

Published in Daily Times, January 17^th 2019.