KARACHI: The final extension to the mandate of the Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee has been given, with global football body FIFA hoping that the election process of the PFF will be completed by Feb 15 next year.

The PFF NC, first appointed in September 2019 and in its third iteration since, had a deadline till Dec 15 to hold elections of the country’s football governing body.

However, the plan to hold elections by that date was halted due to a pushback by members of the PFF Congress when its extraordinary meeting was convened last month to amend the statutes, most notably the eligibility rules for a presidential candidate.

The Nov 20 meeting was postponed due to several departments having raised concerns regarding their right to vote and officials of FIFA and the Asian Football Confe­deration, who were present for the extraordinary congress, said it would be reconvened once the issues were resolved.

And, therefore, a two-month extension has been given to the PFF NC to complete its mandate.

“… based on a new timeline provided by norrmalisation committee, it is now expected that the PFF Constitution will be amended by the PFF Congress in January 2025 and the new electoral code will come into force soon after,” said FIFA in its letter to the NC. “Once the new PFF Constitution has been approved by the PFF Congress, an elective PFF Congress will be convened by the normalisation committee in line with provisions of the new PFF Constitution.

“In view of the above, and in order for the normalisation committee to complete its mandate as decided by the Bureau [of the FIFA Council], in particular to partially revise the PFF Constitution and to organise and conduct elections for a new PFF Executive Committee by no later than 15 February 2025, the Bureau decided on 15 December 2024 to extend the mandate of the normalisation committee for the PFF until 15 February 2025 at the latest.”

The latest extension marks the eighth time the PFF NC has been given extra time to complete its mandate and both FIFA and the AFC are keen for the elections to be held in the given timeframe.

In order to ease the process of amending the PFF Statutes, FIFA had said previously it planned to hold meetings with the officials of the government and the NC. The NC was to liaise with both the government and FIFA but that meeting was never held.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2024