Football, one the most popular and yet neglected games in the country, has never been allowed to take roots due to a nasty and often violent power struggle within the game's controlling body, Pakistan Football Federation (PFF).
Karachi's Lyari area, once itself a nursery for grooming raw talent, has produced a number of top class soccer players. However, the PFF never made any offer to develop infrastructure in one of the oldest city areas. As a result, of which a number of youth indulged in anti-social activities.
Since 1961, the PFF was the hotbed of politicking and intrigues, and those who mattered in the PFF never bothered to secure sponsorships for the fund-starved organisation. This was one of the many factors, which seriously hampered the smooth development of soccer in Pakistan.
Besides the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), the Kuala Lumpur-based Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which was interested to see football flourished in Pakistan like other South Asian nations, and wanted to ensure that Pakistan should not go unnoticed in any AFC event, also got disturbed over the state of affairs in the PFF.
In 1992, the then Lever Brothers (Pakistan) Limited - now Unilever - stepped in the country's football affairs and pumped in millions of rupees to finance the PFF to revive age-limit championship in the country and wanted that the national soccer was included in the biennial National Games as one of the disciplines, besides securing a berth in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) calendar.
Pakistan, who won the golds in 1989 and 1991 SAF Games, failed to maintain their ranking in South Asia and they were behind India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. They were only above Bhutan.
Taking the Lever Brothers' sponsorship as a "windfall," former Secretary-General of Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Hafiz Salman Butt converted the 40th National Football Championship into a marathon league season. This was followed by Pakistan's participation in the 12th Asian Club Championship in 1992 at Bahrain. In this tournament, Lahore's strong Wohaib Club lost in the final round.
SHORT-LIVED:
With the Lever Brothers' sponsorship, it was hoped that Pakistan will make their presence felt in the South Asian region, but it proved short-lived as the Lever Brothers withdrew its financial support because of the bickering and sharp differences in the PFF that had resulted in the removal of Hafiz Salman Butt on June 28, 1994 by President PFF Mian Muhammad Azhar. The 12-year tenure of Mian Azhar as PFF President saw three shameful defeats in Busan Asian Games in 2002.
The PFF, which was rated as one of the poorest sports bodies of the country, became the second richest national sports organisation overnight after Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) when the FIFA decided to grant one million dollars to the PFF under the FIFA development programme.
Despite the FIFA's massive financial assistance, the PFF bosses failed to organise any national championship for youths in eight years during the tenure of Mian Azhar.
It is interesting to recall that in 1992 when Pakistan toured Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan soccer body did not field its national side against a visibly weak Pakistan side. The tour was a big disaster for Pakistan.
During the same period, the age-group teams of Pakistan also failed to impress anyone. The Under-23 team suffered three defeats in the 14th Asian Games soccer tourney in South Korea and returned home by conceding 14 goals and without opening their account. After a 0-6 defeat at the hands of Kuwait, they went down 0-5 to North Korea and 0-3 to Hong Kong.
The Under-20 team got the golden opportunity of reaching the final round when AFC awarded the qualifying round to the PFF. Despite home advantage, Pakistan failed to move ahead. Besides, they were outplayed by Bangladesh, who moved into the final phase of the AFC Under-20 championship played at Qatar.
The Under-17 team, too, met a big 0-4 defeat at the hands of Tajikistan at Dushanbe, and was eliminated from the AFC Under-17 championship. But an AFC ban on Tajikistan football body allowed Pakistan to compete in the final. It was a disastrous tournament for Pakistan as they lost to South Korea 0-3, Yemen 1-2 and managed only a draw against Vietnam.
SANCTIONS:
Before the quarterfinals, the AFC had imposed a heavy fine and sanctions on the PFF for fielding over-age players. Following an X-ray examination, eight players were found to be over-aged. The players were suspended for two years from participation in the national events and PFF was fined 10,000 dollars. Not only the AFC barred Pakistan from participation in the next AFC Under-17 championship in 2004, it also suspended the team officials from holding positions in their national team for two years.
The soccer followers, who were disturbed over the capricious and scandalous PFF election through which Ghulam Abbas (1995) and Agha Liaquat Ali (1999) held the post of the PFF secretary-general, were still hopeful of a bright future of football in the country.
CHANGE OF HANDS:
With the change of hands in the PFF in 2003, they pinned hopes on the new set-up, headed by Faisal Saleh Hayat, who took a number of revolutionary steps to reorganise football culture at district, divisional and provincial levels.
The soccer fans in the country lauded the PFF efforts to revive the game at grassroots level. They also appreciated the PFF for bringing three matches of the qualifying rounds of 29th Olympic Games Football Tournament to Pakistan.
Anyhow the PFF deserves congratulations for being awarded the third edition of AFC President's Cup by the Asian Football confederation (AFC). The event, in which eight top teams of South Asia will battle for their way to the prestigious cup, is scheduled to get under way in September. Originally, the event was to be held from May 12 to 27 in Lahore.
Earlier, the qualifying round of the 29th Olympic Games Football was participated by 24 teams. Pakistan were on top of goal average, having scored 20 goals in six matches, but they could not secure a single point.
Pakistan entered the tournament with a bang, defeating Singapore in Singapore. The first-ever victory over a strong Singapore was highly celebrated by soccer fans here.
But, as the tournament progressed, young and inexperienced Pakistan could not maintain the pace of victory, and on February 28, they lost to Bahrain in their very first match 0-8 at Manama and on June 6, they played their last match against Qatar who defeated them by 7-0. Though Pakistan's defeats against Bahrain and Qatar were disturbing for the soccer fans, it was a fact that Pakistan had performed extremely well in the tournament.
Soccer pundits are of the opinion that the PFF did a blunder of fielding a young side in the absence of an experienced coach. They were also critical of the PFF decision of not accompany with the team any senior official to monitor the consistency in the performance of the players to exploit the potentials of the players to the full. Nevertheless, it was a great honour for Pakistan to play in the qualifying round of the Olympic Games.
AFC PRESIDENT]S CUP: Now the PFF is preparing to host the AFC President's Cup, the first-ever international event to be held in Lahore after the fifth Quaid-i-Azam International Tournament held in 1987.
The ASF, praising the PFF efforts to popularise the "game of masses since 2003," expressed the hope that the forthcoming event would be a memorable occasion for Pakistan. At the same time, soccer fans in Karachi are dismayed over the PFF decision to organise the show in Lahore, depriving the Karachiites of a chance to witness the region's best teams in action.
They said Lahore previously hosted SAF Games soccer in 2004, sixth SAFF Championship in 2005, AFC Under-14 Festival Tournament in 2006 and now third AFC President's Cup. Of the 15 matches of the eight-team contest 13 matches, according to reports, would be played at Punjab Stadium, while two at WAPDA Sports Complex.
Karachi soccer fans and organisers demanded of the PFF President to allot at least three matches to Karachi, which has successfully organised a number of national and international tournaments in the past. The AFC President's Cup, it is believed, would prove a big leap forward in the promotion of football in the country.