LAHORE: Over four years of crisis and almost six years of normalisation have paved the way for the long-awaited elections of the Pakistan Football Federation — this time under the watchful eyes of global football body FIFA.

It’s been a decade since elections of the country’s football governing body were last held. Those disputed elections, held in Changla Gali, plunged the PFF into crisis and controversy and eventually forced FIFA to appoint a Normalisation Committee to oversee football affairs in Pakistan.

That process too has been far from smooth. Since being appointed in September 2019, the NC has seen four iterations and attracted a whole lot of controversy before embarking on an election process which will culminate with the polls of the PFF Executive Committee here on Tuesday.

A three-way race to become the first-elected PFF president in six years has been whittled down to two candidates: former friends Taha Alizai and Mohsen Gilani, after the latter formed an alliance with Hafiz Zakaullah.

Long-awaited elections of the country’s football governing body set to be held today

Sources close to the coalition told Dawn that Zaka, elected to the PFF Congress from Punjab had stood down in favour of former FIFA development officer Mohsen despite having more confirmed votes in the 24-member PFF Congress but the general secretary would be from his side if they were to come to power.

Mohsen’s alliance with Zaka came as a surprise after he held several meetings with front-runner Taha — the founder of Karachi United, the first professionally-run club in the country — to finalise a power-sharing formula.

Both Mohsen and Taha have been actively involved in Pakistan football for years and shared a close friendship before differences developed between them during Hamza Khan’s tenure as chairman of the PFF NC.

The duo also backed the PFF faction led by Zahir Ali Shah and despite their recent differences, there was a strong probability that they would come to an agreement.

That, however, didn’t happen and now they will face-off in the bid to become Pakistan’s next football chief.

NC’S VOTES?

At a meeting of his panel over the weekend, Taha had showed he had 13 confirmed votes — attaining a simple majority that is required to win the election. His support is from the seven public departments as well as three from Balochistan, two from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one from Punjab.

Mohsen, meanwhile, has four confirmed votes — commonly referred to as ‘NC’s votes’ by the country’s football community.

Those include two of the votes from the three women members that were nominated to the PFF Congress, rather than elected, during the tenure of former NC chairman Haroon Malik. The other vote is from women’s championship winning side Karachi City. The candidate backed by Mohsen was elected to the PFF Congress from the Islamabad Football Association.

Zaka, meanwhile, is said to have one of the women votes from the PFF Congress. He’s also reported to have support from one sitting NC member, while having three votes from Sindh and two from his own province, Punjab. The president of the Pakistan Referees Asso­ciation, who came into power in debatable elections held by the NC, is also backing Zaka.

However, with electioneering continuing deep into Monday night and a secret ballot to decide the PFF president, nothing will be decided until the votes have been cast.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2025