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LAHROE: A joint team of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is expected to arrive in Pakistan in January next year to monitor the progress of the country’s football federation’s elections under its Normalisation Committee (NC). MM News has learnt that the joint team will arrive here on January 20 for a three-day visit.
Pakistan Football Federation NC’s chairman Haroon Malik has been quoted as saying that the officials of the world football governing body FIFA and AFC will also meet the Senate Standing Committee on Sports, the members of the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination and the Pakistan Sports Board representatives.
Haroon said the NC was yet to decide dates for the long-due PFF elections, claiming legal cases against the body were a hurdle. He said the ongoing club registration process was set to end on Dec 15 while club scrutiny was scheduled for next month.
It may be recalled that the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) had been suspended last year by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the global governing body, because of ‘third-party interference’ and a ‘hostile takeover’. The suspension was lifted earlier this year, but Pakistan football is yet to be put on track owing to bickering and power struggle among the officials.
It is also pertinent to mention here that while the World Cup going on in Qatar, with 32 top squads in contention, Pakistan is represented at only two sides of what is touted as the greatest show on Earth, that is the footballs made in Sialkot, and a contingent of Pakistan Army providing security at the event. However, neither of them has anything to do with the state of the game in the country.
