Football is among the most popular team sports in Pakistan, together with long time number one cricket and field hockey.[1][2][3] Pakistan's current top domestic football league is the Pakistan Premier League, recognised by the AFC as the official national football league. The PFF National Challenge Cup is a knock-out competition among Pakistani departmental and government institutions. Football in general is run by the Pakistan Football Federation.[4]
The origin of football in Pakistan can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century when the game was introduced during the British Raj. British evangelist Theodore Leighton Pennell played a crucial role in introducing football to the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in the last decade of the nineteenth century.[5] One of the regional federations to organise football in what is now Pakistan Territory was the North-West India Football Association, in which clubs from the city of Lahore and the surrounding region were active.[6] Shining Club Kohat became the first outstation team to win the North-West India Football Championship 1937 in 1937, defeating Government College Lahore 1–0 in the finals.[6][7] In addition a club league was organised in Lahore, won in 1936/37 by Old Boys Club.[6][8]
Shortly after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) was created, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah became its first Patron-in-Chief. PFF received recognition from FIFA in early 1948.[9] The annual National Football Championship was organized shortly after. In 1950, the national team gained their first international experience in Iran and Iraq. The better organised and well-attended Dhaka League gave a level of competitive professionalism in East Pakistan, which lacked in West Pakistan, often attracting the leading players from West Pakistan to play professionally in a competition run as a parallel to the National Championships each year.[10][11] Pakistan's next international outing came in the 1952 Colombo Cup where the team played its first match against India, which ended in a goalless draw and emerged as joint winners of the tournament after finishing with the same points in the table.[12]
In the 1950s because of limited options available for PFF, international games were infrequent. Pakistan could not participate in any World Cup qualification for many years because of financial limitations and political instability inside the PFF, competing mainly in the Colombo Cup editions and the Asian Games.[11] However, the country hosted the Ismail Gold Shield Football Tournament which featured teams from India, Iran, Ceylon, along with others.[13][14][15] The matches were held under floodlights, mainly at the Ibn-e-Qasim Bagh Stadium in Multan.[16][17]
The 1960s resulted in the first incipient golden era, which saw one of the finest players to ever grace the field in Pakistan football history.[10] Pakistan had participated in various friendly tournaments in the early 1960s, with the Merdeka Cup hosted in Malaysia after the country first participation in 1960.[18] Pakistan recorded some famous victories including a 7–0 walloping of Thailand,[19] and a 3–1 win over the Asian powerhouses Japan.[19] In the 1962 Merdeka Tournament, Pakistan ended runner up after falling to Singapore by 1–2 in the final.[20]
The decade also saw many foreign teams often tour Pakistan for unofficial friendly matches during their off-seasons, including teams from China, Soviet Union, or Saudi Arabia. Most notably in 1963, whilst on a world tour, Bundesliga side Fortuna Düsseldorf had to make an emergency stop in Pakistan due to aircraft problems, leaving them stranded for a few days. The PFF invited Fortuna to tour East and West Pakistan playing friendly matches against select XI sides. The Dallas Tornado side of the North American Soccer League went on a world tour that took them from Europe to Asia. During the trip, the team made a week’s stop in Pakistan from October to November 1967, where they played the Pakistan national team, winning 2-0 in Karachi and losing by 4–2 in Lahore.[21][10] The club also played against the Pakistan youth team at Dhaka ending in a 1–1 draw (other sources state 5–2 victory for Pakistani side[22]) in 31 October, and against an unknown team tying 0–0 in Chittagong in 1 November.[23][22]
The dark ages of Pakistani football soon followed. East Pakistan revolted and eventually became Bangladesh in December 1971, inheriting the better football infrastructure of East Pakistan, and the Dhaka League.
Football mainly survived on the basis of sports budgets of departmental teams like WAPDA, Army, KESC, SSGC, PIA and Railways, which hired footballers as employees and provided them with a basic wage to play for their sides and work full time in the off-season.[10][24] During this dark period, however, several local leagues were launched across the Middle East, where several Pakistani players represented club sides in these leagues and some of these players even coached the clubs’ new youth setups. Several local tournaments also started in Pakistan, such as the international Quaid-e-Azam International Cup and the domestic PFF National Challenge Cup.[10]
In 1985, the Asian Football Confederation brought back the Asian Club Championship after a 14 year absence. Pakistan Airlines, having won the 1984 Inter Provincial Championship, was elected to become Pakistan’s first representative in Asian club football, ending up unsuccessful. Pakistan started playing a vital role in the World Cups for years before the participation. The sports goods industry of Sialkot had been providing millions of footballs around the world, peaking during World Cup seasons, since 1980. However Pakistan began with their first ever participation for the 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifiers for Italy, ending up unsuccessful. The national team bounced back, when several months later they took Gold at the 1989 South Asian Games, beating Bangladesh 1–0 in the final.[25] In the 1991 South Asian Games, Pakistan beat the Maldives in the final 2–0 to win their second Gold.[26] Later in the year the first SAFF Cup took place in Lahore in 1993, and the national team finished fourth.
Pakistani football became a hot bed for politics in the early 1990s. In 1990, Pakistan Football Federation held its general elections in which Mian Muhammad Azhar won the presidency by a margin of one vote, beating the Pakistan Peoples Party leader Faisal Saleh Hayat. Azhar later ousted PFF General Secretary Hafiz Salman Butt (a Member of National Assembly of Jamaat-e-Islami) in 1994 due to political rifts and alleged abuse of power.[27]
Between 1991 and 1994 however, the years were often regarded as the best administrative era of Pakistani football.[28] Under Hafiz Salman Butt, the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons of the National Football Championship structured on a proper league-style basis and spread over a number of months.[29] Butt also managed to get a three-year sponsorship deal with Lifebuoy Soap, with amounts of 35 million PKR spent in the organisations of the seasons and televised through the country.[27][30][28][31] With Butt's dismissal in 1994 and ban by FIFA in 1995, Pakistani football declined again into an era of mismanagement and long-lasting lack of sponsors in the upcoming years.[27] Wohaib, founded by Butt, became the first Pakistani club to pass the qualifying round of the Asian Club Championship, where it qualified in the 1992–93 edition.[27][32]
Pakistan Airlines lost their dominance until the end of the 1990s, winning their last of 9 national championships in 1997. WAPDA, Pakistan Army, and Allied Bank before their disbanding in early 2000s took over as the dominant sides in Pakistan. The physically dominant gameplay of Punjab teams, had over-taken Karachi football by then.[27]
In August 2003, the PFF became under new management, as the politician Faisal Saleh Hayat took over. Under new management, the Pakistan Football Federation phased out the National Football Championship and in 2004 introduced the Pakistan Premier League with promotion and relegation.[33][34] The league would remain under severe criticism due to precarious and unprofessional conditions and setup. Departments continued to dominate the domestic competitions. The emergence of clubs like founding member Afghan FC Chaman or Muslim FC gave competition to well-established departmental sides, which poached talented players without any transfer fees or compensation involved.[34] The Geo Super Football League of 2007, running as a parallel city-based league to Pakistan Premier League, held in Karachi saw record crowds at Peoples Stadium. It wasn’t until 2010 with the next edition that the Geo League came back only to be discontinued due to differences with the PFF.[34] The Pakistan under-23 national team also showed improvement, winning the South Asian Games gold in 2004 and 2006. Karachi also saw resurgence in football with Karachi United emerging in the mid 2000s to revolutionise grass-roots level football in Pakistan.[34]
However the controversial PFF chief Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat politician soon became known as a "feudal lord of Pakistani football" due to embezzlement of funds among other controversies.[35] Since March 2015, the top division of the Pakistan Premier League remained suspended because the crisis created due to his actions, along with the men's senior team, who remained suspended from any international competition, and FIFA rankings of the senior team had slumped.[36][37] During his controversial tenure, Pakistan's FIFA ranking dropped from 168 in 2003 to 201 in 2017, which was the year that PFF consequently received a ban from FIFA.[38]
The lift on suspension by FIFA on 13 March 2018.[39] The 2018–19 season was ultimately organised by two different federations. Faisal Saleh Hayat-led Pakistan Football Federation, which was internationally recognised, started the league and non-FIFA recognised Ashfaq Hussain Shah group, which formed a parallel PFF, coming into power by third-party interference through the PFF elections conducted by the Supreme Court.[40][41][42] In 2019, Pakistan national team also lost its chance to pass the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification after losing against Cambodia due to national camps held by two different factions.[43] In January 2019, Atlético Madrid also launched Pakistan's first European football academy.[44][45][46][47]
After the suspension once again from all football activities by FIFA on 7 April 2021,[48][49] the 2021–22 season was initially organised by the Ashfaq Hussain Shah group, who again came to power after attacking and taking charge of the PFF office.[50] The tournament was suspended after a few months into the season and then cancelled.[51]
The suspension was lifted on 29 June 2022.[52] On 27 July 2023, the draw for the first round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification took place in which Pakistan were drawn once again against Cambodia, followed by the appointment of the English coach Stephen Constantine.[53] In the first leg in Phnom Penh, Pakistan contested in a goalless 0–0 draw.[54] Pakistan won their second leg beating Cambodia 1–0 in Islamabad, due to a goal by former QPR player, Harun Hamid, recording their first-ever victory in World Cup qualifiers in their first fixture at home for eight years, and qualifying for the second round for the first time.[55]
The National Football Championship was the men's highest level competition, mainly through knock-out system from 1948 to 2003. It was eventually replaced by the Pakistan Premier League from the 2004–05 season in order to professionalize the sport in Pakistan. The Pakistan Premier League operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Football Federation League.
The franchise based Geo Super Football League was held in 2007 and 2010. Regional and city based leagues have also been held, such as Karachi Football League.
Lyari, a neighbourhood in Karachi, holds an important place in Pakistan's football landscape due to its historical and cultural ties to the sport. Dating back several decades, Lyari has been a consistent source of football talent, contributing significantly to the national sports scene.[57][58] In its early years, football in Pakistan was mainly concentrated to Balochistan and the locality of Lyari,[59] from where majority of players of the Pakistan national football team were recruited mainly in the 1960s, which is often regarded as the early golden age of Pakistani football.[60][61] Notable players during this period include Abdul Ghafoor, nicknamed the "Pakistani Pelé" and "Black Pearl of Pakistan",[62] Muhammad Umer, Musa Ghazi, Abid Ghazi, Turab Ali, Ali Nawaz Baloch, among others.[60][61] The Kakri Ground and People's Football Stadium, which is one of the major football stadiums in the country are located in the city.[63]
Football in Lyari is not just a pastime; it is an integral part woven in to the fabric of the community's cultural identity.[64] One notable aspect is the nickname "Little Brazil" often associated with Lyari, reflecting the neighborhood's fervent passion for football, drawing parallels to the football-crazy culture of Brazil.[65] The grassroots football culture in Lyari emphasises skill and community engagement, with local clubs and tournaments acting as catalysts for talent development.[66][65]
Lyari's football tournaments serve as important events for talent identification and community cohesion.[67] The locality made news during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar for the community's love for Brazilian football and the locals gathering in front of large TV screens to watch the games together.[68]
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