LAHORE: The affairs of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) are becoming more complicated with each passing day and now a two-member committee has been formed by its FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee (NC) Chairman Muneer Ahmad Khan Sadhana to probe the complaints received from the provincial committees against the alleged violation of laws and constitution of the PFF during the tenure of the previous chairman of the committee Hamza Khan.

In a letter, a copy of which was obtained by Dawn, Sadhana also restrained all the provincial committees of Punjab, KP, Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan, and Islamabad formed by the previous chairman NC Hamza Khan on Dec 9, 2020, from discharging their duties. These committees were formed to hold the scrutiny of the clubs in their respective areas.

Furthermore, till the completion of the inquiry against these complaints, all the orders issued by the provincial committees will stand suspended.

Interestingly, the two-member committee formed to probe the complaints comprises the current secretary general of the NC Manizeh Zainli and Lt. Col. (retd.) Mujahid Tareen, who is also a member of the NC. Manizeh was sacked as secretary general in Hamza’s tenure but was recently restored by the court.

Sadhana was named as chairman NC after his predecessor Hamza resigned from the post on Dec 14, some 17 days before the term of the committee was to expire on Dec 31. But FIFA has extended the committee’s term for six months as the committee, formed on Sept 14, 2019, could not complete the job of holding the scrutiny of the club and elections across the country to end the war between two warring groups - one headed by Faisal Saleh Hayat and second by Syed Ashfaq Hussain, both claiming to be the genuine office-bearers of the PFF.

It is feared that a fierce fight between Manizeh’s lobby and Hamza’s lobby maybe ensued now which could further delay the original job of the NC of holding the fresh elections while the progress of football will continue to get severely affected.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2020