LAHORE: Faisal Saleh Hayat was left waiting on Wednesday for the possession of the FIFA House, the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) headquarters, despite having been declared as the country’s football chief by the Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench.

In its judgment, the LHC deemed legal the presidential election of Hayat held on 30 June 2015 despite having also upheld an earlier provincial election which was won by a rival faction to Hayat’s, whose elected members were not present in the PFF polls.

Sardar Naveed Haider Khan, a spokesperson of the Hayat faction, told Dawn that even though they visited the FIFA House on Tuesday and Wednesday, the administrator — a retired justice appointed by the court when the dispute broke in the PFF in 2015 — did not hand over the control.

“On Tuesday, we were asked to come on Wednesday with attested copies of the LHC orders but when we arrived on Wednesday the administrator said he was in Karachi and would come back to Lahore on Thursday.”

The Hayat faction meanwhile issued a statement late on Wednesday night saying that it will “adopt all legal remedies available” to gain possession of the FIFA House.

“Despite of explicit orders by the Division Bench Lahore High Court, the Administrator has not handed over the control of PFF to its elected body,” it said.

“Syed Khadim Ali Shah, PFF senior vice-president, was authorised by the PFF president to take the charge of PFF from the administrator.

“But on February 28, as per administrator’s given words, when the PFF elected members reached at PFF Headquarters at 12 pm, the administrator and his staff had already left while locking the entry gates.

“PFF president has said that if according to the latest promise made by the administrator, complete charge of PFF is not handed back to its elected body, we will adopt all legal remedies available.”

The rival faction, meanwhile, is in the process of filing a petition against the LHC’s decision in the Supreme Court.

Sardar Naveed, however, said he had no information about it. “They [rival faction] might have done that but I have no such information,” he said.

Pakistan was banned by FIFA in October last year after the global football body deemed the appointment of the court-appointed administrator as “third-party interference”.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2018