The notice is out: the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) under its recently-elected chief, Mohsen Gilani, is looking for willing partners in order to launch a new domestic league.

In a public notice, the PFF has asked prospective partners to submit an expression of interest and a detailed proposal by early next month.

The big question remains, however, is whether the new competition would be based on the old model of the Pakistan Premier Football League — which had a mix of departments and smattering of clubs, and hasn’t been held since 2019 — or will it be franchise-based.

Franchise league merchants, several in number in Pakistan, will be quick to jump in; their plans have been in motion for years. The only thing lacking was an endorsement by the PFF.

For departments — many of whom have shut down their sports operations due to changing domestic policies and the decade of crisis in the PFF — and clubs, however, getting a proposal together would be more taxing. A proposal as such will also have to deliberate about the teams promoted from the last edition of the second-tier Pakistan Football Federation League, held in 2020 under the FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee for the PFF.

Pakistan Football may soon get a new domestic league. But questions remain about what kind of league it will be and whether it will be what Pakistan really needs

PFF’s sense of urgency to start the league has been heightened by the visit to the country last week of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa. Sheikh Salman, FIFA’s senior vice-president, reaffirmed AFC’s support for the holding of the league.

“We will offer all the support we can,” Asia’s football chief told Eos in an interview during his visit. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pro league [at the outset] but maybe, in the future, it should be one. It will........

© Dawn (Magazines)