The world football governing body FIFA on Saturday called on the Afghan Football Federation (AFF) to postpone its election, saying the “the current environment is not conducive to a peaceful, transparent and orderly electoral process”.
Issuing a letter signed by FIFA’s Secretary General Fatma Samoura, the world body says it cannot send its observers to oversee the AFF election of its management, slated for April 5, 2017.
Part of the letter reminds the AFF to manage its affairs “independently and without influence from third parties.”
“Failure to abide by this obligation might lead to sanctions as provided for in the FIFA Statutes,” the letter says.
The letter was sent to the AFF a day after four members of the Afghan parliament showed up at the federation accompanying one of the two contenders in the AFF elections, Haroon Popal, signed the electoral forms and demanded direct oversight of the elections.
The delegation, led by MP Obaidullah Barakzai, the head of complaints commission at the Lower House of the parliament, said “it was their right to oversee the process”.
The MPs apparently argued that their oversight was more important than FIFA’s.
Incumbent Keramuddin Kiram and businessman Haroon Popal are running for AFF presidency.
AFF confirmed that the April 5 elections have postponed indefinitely until the international association completed its assessment of the situation, Sayed Ali Reza Aqazada, the AFF secretary general, said at a press conference after receiving the FIFA letter.
“We don’t want Afghan football to face the fate of Pakistan or Indonesia and we don’t want to lose the pride we have gained after 96 years. We don’t want to see the Afghan football collapse because of interferences which are baseless,” he added.
Afghanistan’s sports, including the National Olympics Committee, the government-run sports department and many independent sports federations, have been a place for fierce political clashes as different camps within the government and politicians try to installing their own people.
“The sons of this soil are bringing pride to their country in a situation that there is war, explosion and attacks in Afghanistan. Interference in this respect [sports] will probably suspend the membership of the Afghan football and Olympic federations in FIFA,” said Zahir Aghbar, head of the National Olympic Committee.
Mr Aghbar’s own title as the head national Olympics head, although recognized by the International Olympics Committee (IOC), is disputed by the government-run sports body in charge of promoting and funding sports.
President Ashraf Ghani’s special envoy for reforms and good governance, Mr Ahmad Zia Massoud, paid a visit to the AFF on Saturday, promising that government will not allow any interference in sports affairs.
“The achievements in sports will be lost if sport in Afghanistan is politicized or if tribal issues are added to it. This is not good. We will not let any institution interfere in Afghanistan’s sports affairs. Let the sport to grow in its natural path,” Massoud stated.
Afghanistan’s sports, football, cricket and taekwondo in particular, have made enormous progress since the fall of the Taliban as football has gone 47 up in the FIFA ranking from 198 to 151, cricket is in the world’s top 10 and taekwondo has brought Afghanistan’s first Olympic medals in history.