KARACHI: In the first meeting of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalisation Committee with Munir Sadhana as the acting chairman, decisions taken by previous chairman Humza Khan were reversed.

Manizeh Zainli was reinstated to her post as the secretary general of the PFF Normalisation Committee while PFF election commissioner secretary Chaudhry Saleem was stopped from working for the time being.

Humza resigned from his post at the start of December and the last decisions he made were the termination of Manizeh’s contract and the appointment of Saleem.

“Since Manizeh’s termination was illegal, we have reinstated her to the post provided she withdraws the court cases against the PFF Normalisation Com­mittee,” Sadhana told Dawn following the meeting at the PFF House in Lahore.

“As far as the election commission secretary is concerned, there were reports on conflict of interest against him as his brother is also on the appeals committee so we’ve stopped him from working while initiating an inquiry against Normalisation Committee member Sikandar Khattak, who nominated him to the post,” added Sadhana.

The PFF Normalisation Committee was appointed by FIFA in September last year to hold fresh elections of the PFF in a bid to end the crisis in the country’s football governing body which has badly damaged the sport during the best part of the last decade.

Sadhana was nominated to the committee by former PFF president Faisal Saleh Hayat, who leads one of the three groups who are likely to contest the upcoming election.

Sadhana, however, said that despite his nomination from the Hayat faction, he would do his best to be “credible, impartial and transparent”.

FIFA is expected to announce a permanent chairman at the start of the next year, while it also has to make a decision on extending the mandate of the Normalisation Committee which is due to expire at the end of this year.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2020