The former President of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF), Syed Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat lost the elections in his Jhang constituency of NA 108 on Friday while contesting on the ticket of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN).
An independent candidate backed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Muhammad Mehboob Sultan defeated him convincingly.
Hayat is infamously known as the feudal lord of Pakistani football and he remained in the PFF office as the president from 2003 to 2017, which marks three tenures of presidency as the president of the Pakistan Football Federation. It should be noted that no president can exceed his stay in office of a football federation, according to the laws of FIFA.
Faisal Saleh Hayat was the minister of commerce from 1988-90 and remained a stalwart politician of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for two spells, from 1988 to 2002 and then in 2018 where he spent another four years, before switching his allegiance to PMLN last year.
Under General Pervez Musharraf he also served as the Interior Minister of Pakistan between 2002 to 2004 and has served as federal minister in numerous ministries such as Housing and Works, Environment, and Kashmir Affairs.
In 2013, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) rejected his election nomination papers due to corruption charges of stealing irrigation water.
FIFA Goal Projects
When Faisal Saleh Hayat was in office, he often boasted that he attracted different projects in 2008 and that eight cities would be developed with these projects according to PFF’s Vision 2020.
These eight cities were Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Sukkur, Jacobabad, Abbottabad and Khanewal. The Peshawar project was worth $500,000 and nobody knows where the money went. The project was located near the historic Shah Bagh locality and remains dormant.
Four of the eight projects were awarded in 2010 and till he remained in office, no significant work was done on it. During the floods of the year 2010, AFC granted flood relief project funds in Hayat’s native constituency Jhang which was worth $650,000, and out of this money $400,000 was donated by Dr. Chung Mong -Joon who was the South Korean football executive at that team.
Albeit, with this massive influx of funding for different FIFA goals and projects, no development was done and it remains a mysterious tale where the money went. PFF still has not given any account or explanation related to the progression of FIFA goal projects or the actual bearers of the funding money.
