LAHORE: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) headed by Faisal Saleh Hayat, which took the control of the PFF headquarters some five days back from Lahore High Court’s appointed administrator, expressed its dissatisfaction over the condition of the FIFA House.

In a press release issued here on Monday, by the PFF secretary Ahmad Yar Lodhi stated:”After a hard work of three long days, the filth of PFF Headquarters could not be removed completely. Three days ago when we took over the charge of PFF Headquarters from the administrator, the gorgeous building of PFF Headquarters was in a real bad shape.

“Water-destroyed walls plaster was stirred up from many places and the floor tiles were broken from here and there,” Lodhi further said.

“All utilities of PFF secretariat including water, electricity, telephone and internet were out of order. After a hard work of three days, we have brought the offices in a condition where the PFF staff can at least sit and work. It will require a lot of finances to bring back the beauty of the PFF Headquarters, FIFA Football House.”

Meanwhile, PFF president Faisal Saleh Hayat said that the non-footballers and the enemies of this beautiful game have not only destroyed the building of PFF Headquarters, but they have also undoubtedly damaged the sport.

“Through our continuous and rigorous multi-dimensional endeavors, we have brought the football to such a respectable level where we were progressing very well in a right direction but the turmoil in the past three years have wrecked our efforts,”he said.

“We not only developed the game but also got approved seven FIFA Goal Projects worth millions of dollars for Pakistan. Some of those were running.”

It may be mentioned that though FIFA has allocated seven Goal Projects, only the FIFA House is functional as rest have been subject to bad management by the Hayat-led PFF.

Moreover, Pakistan’s ranking also went down to 188th in the FIFA rankings in January, 2015, during Faisal’s regime before he held the elections in the same year.

The interference of government and courts in the affairs of the PFF forced FIFA impose suspension on the body. The suspension is still intact despite restoration by the division bench of the Lahore High Court.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2018