FIFA backs Normalisation Committee after Hayat criticism – Newspaper

KARACHI: The disapproval and denunciation finally came openly. It was not enough to bother FIFA.

After statements by officials of his faction, former head of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), Faisal Saleh Hayat, publicly expressed his views on the FIFA Standardization Committee appointed for the first time on Sunday, calling it "controversial, biased and driven by the agenda."

A video of Hayat talking to a group of officials of the Punjab Football Association shows him stating that he has informed both the FIFA world soccer body and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) about his reservations about the composition of the Committee of Normalization when it got into the body of the body. President Humza Khan.

"This is a FIFA committee, so we won't comment," said an AFC spokesman. Dawn Monday when asked about Hayat's comments.

FIFA was clearer, once again strongly endorsing the Standardization Committee it has established to solve Pakistan's problem once and for all.

"As already mentioned, the Standardization Committee has assumed its functions in accordance with its mandate and fully supported by FIFA and the AFC," said a FIFA spokesman. Dawn.

Dawn He understands that FIFA wants football to advance in Pakistan after four years of crisis and controversy that has seriously affected the game in the country. Despite widespread resentment, the governing body of the game also strongly supports the decision to install the Standardization Committee, which should hold new PFF elections in June next year.

FIFA's decision to appoint a Standardization Committee came in June, following the visit of an investigative mission to the country one month before and almost four years after Hayat organized divisive and contested PFF elections.

Hayat filed a strong protest with the FIFA president over the appointment of Humza, as well as the conduct of Alexandre Gros, the senior governance services manager of the FIFA Member Associations Committee that formed the Standardization Committee.

However, his opposition to the officials of the FIFA research missions is nothing new. In 2015, when FIFA also sent a mission after those controversial elections, Hayat also wrote a letter written to the AFC on the conduct of the officials of that mission. Then, the influence of the AFC avoided a possible Standardization Committee.

Hayat seems to be looking for more of the same.

"We all know that there could not have been a more controversial people than some of the committee members," he tells the audience in the video obtained by Dawn.

"We have informed FIFA and AFC and I am doing my job, but with their presence here, not only does it increase my confidence, but it shows that an overwhelming majority of 27-28 districts are with me. It conveys a worldwide message that Pakistan soccer players, administrators and referees reject the normalization committee.

"They rejected it because FIFA's own regulation and parameters state that the members of the standardization committee should have no link to past PFF disputes or any relationship with those who were part of that dispute, and yet there are two members : especially Humza Khan and retired colonel Mujahidullah Tareen, who not only had deep ties but were also involved in it. ”

After officials of his group questioned Humza's neutrality, Hayat did the same, citing that since the 40-year-old previously played for Karachi United, he would share the same opinions as that of the club's founder, Taha Alizai, who has Been a legal representative. for the PFF faction that opposed Hayat locally in a long and lengthy court case that concluded in December last year.

Meanwhile, Mujahid has been a long-time opponent of Hayat and worked at the PFF as his general secretary and technical director before leaving the federation in 2006, as he disagreed with Hayat.

The composition of the Standardization Committee is such that, although FIFA selected Humza, two members were selected from each of the two belligerent factions of the PFF. Hayat says that the duo nominated by him, Munir Ahmed Khan Sadhana and Syed Hasan Najib Shah, had protested against FIFA.

"Two members of the committee have written to FIFA, saying that the committee is not neutral, it is partial, that it is driven by the agenda and that the agenda is not related to football, and that if the committee continues to work, the football in Pakistan will. " does not get better.

"The committee must act with transparency, merit and justice and that the actions taken since then by the committee do not prove it," he adds, referring to the fact that the first Humza movement was to eliminate the secretariat of Hayat's long-term assistant who retirement. Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi.

Meanwhile, PFA officials also wrote a letter to FIFA and the AFC, a copy of which was obtained by Dawn – in which "they urged FIFA to formulate a new transparent committee", "condemned the attitude of the current standardization committee" and added that "they would reject the elections and the normalization committee if a transparent committee is not formed".

They also warned that, if they do not, the situation of football in Pakistan could deteriorate to a point that will be beyond the control of any organization, including FIFA or AFC.

During the last month or so, FIFA has shown that it will not move from the position it has taken. This last threat should not change that.

Posted on Dawn, October 1, 2019