Super Football League starts in Karachi today

KARACHI: As many as five teams are vying for top honours in the Super Football League getting underway today with defending champions Islamabad United taking on last year’s finalists Karachi Energy in the opening match under floodlights at the Peoples Stadium.

A total of 20 league matches will be played in the first phase of the tournament after which the top four teams will qualify for the pre-finals. The matches of the event will be played three days a week – Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Peshawar’s Tribe FC, Quetta Zorawar, and Lahore Lajpaal are the other teams featuring in the tournament, the final of which will be played on July 31.

Last year’s event was attended by a large number of spectators at the same venue which has a capacity of around 35,000 and was termed a huge success. However, with this year’s event taking place at the same time as the Fifa World Cup in South Africa, it was thought that the crowd numbers will be decreased considerably as a result.

Pakistan Football Federation Director Operations Pervaiz Saeed Mir, however, believes the tournament will not be affected because of the World Cup.

“This is the only available window we had to hold the tournament since we’ll have the Pakistan Premier League taking place after Eid,” Mir, who is also the chief co-coordinator of the tournament, told The Express Tribune. “The dates of the events may be similar but timings of the matches are not the same.”

He, instead, felt that the youngsters would get a good chance to learn from the world class players who will be action in the World Cup and could be seen on TV.

“Youngsters will play with more passion because of the football fever and by watching the top players in action, they can learn and apply their skills during the tournament.”

Published in the Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2010.