Sports Desk: FIFA has suspended Pakistan’s membership. The “Bureau of FIFA Council” announced the punishment in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement said the suspension would remain in place until FIFA’s “normalization committee” established full control over the Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) office, accounts, administration and media.

The PFF will not receive any financial or technical benefits from the global football authority until membership is restored.

This is the second time in the last four years that Pakistan has been punished by FIFA. Pakistan’s membership was suspended for the next six months from October 2017.

The PFL’s management has been in a tug of war for a long time. In 2017, the country’s football federation formed a committee without a neutral election under FIFA law. That is why FIFA suspended Pakistan’s membership for the next six months from October of that year.

After that in 2019 FIFA made a normalization committee of PFL. In January this year, Harun Malik was appointed as the head of the committee. But on March 27, the Ashfaq-led group took over the PFF headquarters in Lahore, removing Malik. Since then, FIFA has been issuing stern warnings to the PFF.

FIFA was finally forced to suspend its membership again.

It may be mentioned that the Supreme Court also selected a group of football officials led by Ashfaq Hussain to run the PFF in 2018. The committee did not recognize FIFA.