LAHORE: Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalisation Committee chairman Haroon Malik called for quick resolution of the sport’s crisis in the country on Monday, ruing the national sides’ missed opportunities of featuring in international competitions due to the ongoing ban by world football governing body FIFA.

Pakistan’s membership at FIFA was suspended in March last year after the Ashfaq Hussain Shah group — who won the 2018 PFF elections conducted by the Supreme Court — took over its headquarters in Lahore, alleging that the NC deliberately delayed the pending elections which it was supposed to conduct.

Haroon, in a press release, said the ban had deprived Pakistan from participating in several senior and junior level tournaments scheduled for this year at the continental and South Asian level.

The government, however, had agreed upon a timeline for the PFF elections with the NC and had recently informed the interim body that it get the PFF headquarters back.

The final decision was to be announced after the arrival of Minister for Interprovincial Coordination Fehmida Mirza from the United States. There are reports that Fehmida has arrived back and now a decision is most likely to be announced in the next few days.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2022