As PFF NC welcomes FIFA-AFC delegation, stakeholders voice discontent.

LAHORE -- Discussion, debate and discourse on football in Pakistan took centre stage here on Monday, with more to come on Tuesday, as the Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee welcomed the joint-delegation from global football body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation amid voices of discontent emanating from two groups of stakeholders of the game in the country. From the PFF headquarters to the Lahore Press Club, all talk was about football and what is to come next.

Officials of FIFA and AFC joined PFF NC chairman Haroon Malik as the mobile unit shuttle service of the Pakistan Football Connect, the programme for registration of clubs - the first step in the holding long-due elections of the PFF, was launched at the headquarters of the country's football governing body. The aim of the mobile unit, Haroon said, was to allow for the Connect Programme to reach clubs in far-flung areas of the country. Some 12 kilometres away at the press club, stakeholders dismissed it as another gimmick to delay the elections.

'It would take just four more weeks to complete the club registration and we have a mandate till June 2023,' Haroon told reporters, when asked whether the shuttle service would further delay the election process. He was the only one who spoke with Rolf Tanner, FIFA's Head of Member Associations Governance, Purushottam Kattel, the Head of the South Asia Unit of the AFC's Member Associations division and Andrei Vashkevich, FIFA's Regional Office Development Coordinator from Dubai, attending the short ceremony to launch the shuttle service but not speaking to the media.

FIFA has already said there will be no media activity during the delegation's visit, postponed from November due to unrest in the country. The three members of the delegation are due to attend a summit that is being organised by the PFF NC at a local hotel on Tuesday. Media was issued formal invitations for the event late on Monday night. FIFA did not respond to a query from Dawn till the filing of this report about whether the delegation members will be speaking during the summit which the PFF NC says will 'contribute towards nation building through football'. The PFF NC said that media can attend the event as observers and there will be a briefing at the end of it.

Former PFF vice-president Zahir Ali Shah and Ashfaq Shah, the court-elected PFF president who was not recognised by FIFA, alleged at their news conferences that they are being kept out from...

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