Local event overshadowed by Football World Cup

While the whole country is busy admiring Messi’s magic, showing their depression over unfair sending off for Kaka, and worried about England’s hope of winning silverware, there are a few lads out there in People’s Stadium, Karachi representing their cities in Pakistan’s 2nd edition of Super Football League.  Teams from Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad and Quetta are fighting head to head, to win this years tournament.

I mentioned in a previous post, that the decision to organize this event right when World Cup fever was high was a wrong one and lacked planning to organize this event when World Cup fever is high. Although the competition is sponsored by a leading sports TV channel it seems that it was more like a commercial deal to boost their brand name, rather than having serious attitude towards football development in the country. There is hardly any coverage of this event in the electronic and print media, and not many people are aware of the tournament.

The organizers’ decision to choose People’s stadium as an official venue has also prevented a lot of fans from across the city to watch the matches, due to security concerns in the area. But one thing we have to keep in mind is that it is the only stadium with good facilities available in the city. PFF should use the funds provided by FIFA to build more international standard stadiums in order to draw crowds and fans alike.