By Gauhar Mahmood Azeem
The Punjab Football Association recently declared the on-going DFA Lahore League illegal. FPDC Lahore correspondent Gauhar Mahmood Azeem caught up with DFA Lahore President Tanveer Zia Butt for his comments on the issue.
Mr. Butt laughed off the matter saying that the PFA letter has put them into trouble themselves. He said, ” The letter is addressed to the PFF President whereas it should have been addressed to the General Secretary. The PFA is just an association which arranges no football itself and has not organized any inter-district championship for 3 years now, and is bent upon stopping any football happening in the region though it should support it.”
He further said that the league was 2010 version of the DFA Lahore League and not the 2011. He said ”The PFA has failed to notice that the League is the ‘2010’ league and it is ridiculous to use the 2011 calender as a base of a challenge against it. The league will go ahead as it has PFF backing and the 2011 league will be as per the calender given by the PFF.”
Former PFF General Secretary Hafiz Salman Butt was also present and criticized the attempt of the PFA. He said, ”The PFA is as home-less as the flood hit Pakistanis. It has no office and address. It looks to stop football.” He questioned the accounts of the PFA by saying, ”Even though the PFA receives a lot of money from FIFA and the government, there has been no audit of the PFA since 1994.”
They said the league will go ahead and that they will continue to give footballers the chance to play the game.