National Football Championship (Pakistan)

The National Football Championship alternatively spelled National Soccer Championship was the men's highest level football competition from 1948 to 2003. Founded by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) in 1948, it was mainly held on knock-out basis. It was eventually replaced by the Pakistan Premier League from the 2004–05 season in order to professionalize the sport in Pakistan. Until 1971, it was run in parallel with the Dhaka League in East Pakistan.
The National Football League era though saw Karachi based Pakistan Airlines with most championships, winning the competition nine times. National Football Championship featured teams representing cities or provinces, including teams from Dacca Division and Chittagong Division from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Dacca Division won two back-to-back leagues, and Chittagong Division won the league only once.
The 1948 Pakistan National Football League was the first season held between 28 May and 5 June which ended with Sindh Red being crowned champions after defeating Sindh Blue in the final. However, any sort of professionalism in the game was non-existent, as the first participants of the championship used players from local schools, colleges, government departments that coincidentally employed sportsmen, and open trials.
After first two years of lack of funds and mismanagement, the Pakistan Football Federation failed to organise the National Championship 1949. However, in early 1950, the PFF was completely restructured and reorganised, bringing the competition back, this time held in early September 1950 at Quetta where Balochistan Red beat Sindh in the final. The results of the 1950 National Championship contributed in the selection of the first ever Pakistan national football team, which debuted internationally on its first official tour to Iran and Iraq in October 1950.
Between 1960 and 1966, football teams from Karachi and Dacca began dominating when the two cities won five consecutive national championships between 1960 and 1966. Much of the credit was due to the better organised and well-attended Dhaka League that gave a level of competitive professionalism in East Pakistan, which lacked in West Pakistan. The Dhaka League often attracted the leading players from West Pakistan to play professionally in a competition run as a parallel to the National Championships each year.
Before the Bangladesh Liberation War, the 1969–70 National Championship was won by Chittagong in East Pakistan as they beat Peshawar in the final at Comilla. A year later without teams from East Pakistan, Pakistan Airlines won its first ever national championship in Multan after overcoming Karachi in the final.
After the formation of Bangladesh in December 1971, clubs from East Pakistan stopped featuring in the league. Football mainly survived on the basis of sports budgets of majority of the departmental teams and armed forces teams which already dominated in West Pakistan, 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. These government entities primarily used investment in sports as evidence of their Corporate Social Responsibility, with little incentive to develop talent or professionalise their set-ups. Similar system was also prevalent in several countries such as the Soviet Union, and was abolished in these nations after the 1960s.
In the consequent years, Pakistan Airlines continued dominating the domestic structure. Their third title came in the first of the two 1975 seasons, defeating provincial side Punjab A. In 1976 they retained their title, holding off a challenge from Pakistan Railways. Pakistan Airlines were defending champions in 1978, after there being no football 1977 due to martial law, but they continued to dominate Pakistani football and beat Sindh Red to take the championship for a fifth time.
They defeated Pakistan Air Force in 1981 to win their sixth title. They had to wait eight years for their next title win, Sindh Government Press were the team beaten in 1989.
Between 1991 and 1994, the years were often regarded as the best administrative era of Pakistani football. Under the General Secretary of the Pakistan Football Federation Hafiz Salman Butt, the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons won by Pakistan Airlines and Pakistan Army respectively structured on a proper league-style basis and spread over a number of months. 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. Out of that amount, 15 million rupees were spent on advertisement and remaining 20 million on the players and teams over the three-year period. The teams were awarded 50,000 rupee bonuses.
Butt was eventually ousted by Mian Muhammad Azhar due to political rifts and alleged abuse of power. 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.
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.
Punjab dominated the championship with a total of 21 titles won. Sindh based Karachi and East Bengal based Dacca dominated the league from 1960 to 1965; Dacca winning consecutive titles from 1960 to 1961 and 1961–62, and Karachi winning back to back three titles from 1962 to 1963, 1963–64 and 1964–65.