KARACHI: Asia’s football chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa is hopeful of a “new era of leadership” at the helm of the Pakistan Football Federation as the FIFA-appointed Normali­sation Committee closes in on holding the long-awaited elections of the country’s football governing body.

The PFF NC announced the election rules on Friday, ahead of their meeting with Sheikh Sal­m­an, the Asian Football Confe­deration president, in Colombo on the sidelines of the extraordinary congress meeting of the South Asian Football Federation.

“One of the key highlights of the event [SAFF Congress] was a dedicated meeting between the PFF leadership [comprising chairman Saud Hashmi and member Shahid Khokhar] and AFC president Shaikh Salman, accompanied by Vahid Kardany, the AFC deputy general secretary who played a crucial role in the recent PFF Congress settlement, ensuring alignment of the PFF Statutes with AFC and FIFA,” said a NC news release.

“During the discussion, the focus remained on the ongoing nor­malisation process in Pakistan football and the upcoming PFF elections, both considered crucial milestones in revitalising the cou­ntry’s footballing landscape. Expr­e­­ssing optimism, Shaikh Salman shared his hopeful expectations for a new era of leadership to em­erge from the upcoming PFF elections.

“He emphasised that strong, stable leadership is essential for the sport’s growth in Pakistan and pledged all-out AFC support to assist the country in its journey toward football development and excellence.”

The NC had hit a roadblock towards elections earlier this year when the PFF Congress had rejected the amendments to the constitution proposed by FIFA, which were a key requisite for the holding of the polls.

The PFF had been suspended by FIFA over the refusal before another meeting was held in late February where the PFF Congress accepted the amendments in the presence of Kardany.

Those amendments paved the way for the election rules to be announced where it said that the normalisation committee will become the electoral committee and a PFF presidential candidate will have to provide written confirmation — or nomination — from at least five Congress members.

A Congress member competing in the polls is barred from providing a nomination for their own self and cannot support more than one candidate.

The rules add that candidatures for the presidency and the executive committee — for which just one nomination is required — will be examined by the electoral committee within seven days of the deadline for their submission.

Candidates whose applications have been rejected by the electoral committee will have four days, starting from the day on which the initial decision was communicated, to request a review of their application with the review to be carried out within two days and a “final decision shall be communicated within the same time frame”.

Any appeals against the decisions of the electoral committee, can be made to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The PFF NC had consulted the PFF Congress over the election rules with the final approval coming from FIFA and AFC.

One former AFC official, who has been monitoring the normalisation process in Pakistan since the committee was first appointed in 2019, however, will not be seeing it cross the finish line. Purushottam Kattel, who headed AFC’s South Asia Unit, was on Thursday named the new SAFF general secretary.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2025