FIFA working with PFF NC to salvage Pakistan's Goal Projects

Global football governing body FIFA is working together with the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Normalisation Committee to revive the country's Goal Projects that have been lying in ruins for the last several years.

Speaking at a news conference, PFF Normalisation Committee chairman Humza Khan told reporters that FIFA had asked him to look at how the country's Goal projects can be spared from total destruction. On Friday, FIFA indicated that it is looking at "potential infrastructure projects". "FIFA is working hand in hand with the PFF Normalisation Committee to promote the holistic development of football in Pakistan," a FIFA spokesperson told Dawn. "In line with the FIFA Forward objectives, we are currently assessing the best options, including potential infrastructure projects. Further details will follow."

Pakistan's Goal projects are a sad story. Of the eight given to Pakistan, only one - the PFF House in Lahore, the country's football headquarters is complete and functional. Another six seem hastily built, and are grossly underutilised, while the one in Peshawar was cancelled. Those projects were given to Pakistan as part of FIFA's Goal Programme, the brainchild of former FIFA president Sepp Blatter which aimed at providing football infrastructure and facilities including pitches, technical centres and youth academies for the development of the game.

The Goal Programme was replaced by the Forward

Programme following Gianni Infantino's election as FIFA president in 2016, after a high-profile scandal rocked the world's football governing body and led to its overhaul.

The Forward Programme not only promised more investment but more oversight and accountability too, one that the Goal Programme never had. The impact of that is nowhere as profound as in Pakistan.

In 2015, Dawn uncovered how the Goal Projects awarded to Pakistan, especially the four in 2010, were part of an intricate deal to curry favour in elections of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Apart from the one in Lahore, all others were awarded to Pakistan during the time when Faisal Saleh Hayat was the PFF president.