National Football Championship (Pakistan)

The National Football Championship, known as National A-Division Football Championship between 1992 and 1994, was the men's highest level football competition from 1948 to 2003. Founded by the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) in 1948, it was usually held as a knockout representative tournament, with teams fielded by provincial and divisional associations alongside departmental teams. Between 1992 and 1994, the competition briefly adopted a revamped league format, before reverting to knockouts. It was replaced by the Pakistan Premier League in 2004 as part of efforts to professionalise domestic football.

Karachi based Pakistan Airlines is the most successful team, winning the competition nine times.

The 1948 Pakistan National Football Championship, then known as the "Inter-Provincial Football Tournament", 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 at the YMCA Ground in Karachi. It is also claimed by some sources that the 1948 season was won by Karachi Red.

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. Parallel to the championship, many separate amateur regional leagues with promotion and relegation featuring clubs were also held, like Karachi Football League, Lahore Football League, or Quetta Football League. Players frequently took part in these competitions for their local clubs, while also being selected to represent either their provincial associations or their departmental teams in the National Championship.

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.

In 1951, the Pakistan Football Federation weren't able to organize the third National Football Championship which was initially scheduled to be held in Dacca, East Pakistan, with the competition beginning on 10 September 1951. However, the tournament was postponed and then ultimately canceled a month earlier due to the ongoing Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan.

The 1950s editions of the National Championship were mostly dominated by the provincial Punjab football team, with the team consisting of international players such as Riasat Ali, Abdul Haq, Ghulam Rabbani, Talib Ali, Masoodul Hassan Butt, and Masood Fakhri. The team won the competition four consecutive times during the years 1952 till 1955, defeating the NWFP three times in the finals (1952, 1953, and 1955). The provincial side also competed under different names, including Punjab Blue in 1954 and 1958, they would also win the championship in the same years.

East Pakistan and Balochistan teams before the 1959 final.

In 1956, the Balochistan football team secured their first national title, defeating Railway White in the final by 2–1. Just three years later, Balochistan would embark on another impressive campaign, defeating several strong opponents to reach the final.

In 1957, a Talib Ali led Punjab squad would once again win another National Football title against the East Pakistan Whites in Dacca. Defeating them 2–1 at the Dacca Stadium. The squad would compete under the name Punjab Blue in 1958, same as they did in 1954. The side would go on to win the title back-to-back.

1961–62 National Football Championship final between Dacca Division and Karachi Blues. Ayub Khan and Asghar Khan meeting with Dacca Division

In 1961, under PFF newly elected president Asghar Khan, the National Football Championship structure in Pakistan transitioned from provincial to divisional based teams.

Between 1961 and 1966, Karachi Division and Dacca Division began dominating when the two teams won five consecutive national championships between 1960 and 1966. Much of the credit was due to the Dhaka Football League that gave a level of competitive professionalism in East Pakistan, which lacked in West Pakistan. Many leading players affiliated with Dhaka League clubs, both from West and East Pakistan, were chosen to represent the East Pakistan provincial team or the Dhaka Division team in the National Championship.

1969 National Football Championship-winning Pakistan Western Railway team pictured with Yahya Khan

Before the Bangladesh Liberation War, the 1969–70 National Championship was won by Chittagong Division in East Pakistan as they beat Peshawar Division 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 Division 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.

PIA FC dominated the National Football Championship from the 1970s till 1990s

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.

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. The top division, named as National Lifebuoy A-Division Football Championship, operated alongside a system of promotion and relegation with the second-tier National Lifebuoy B-Division Football Championship, which was won by Crescent Textile Mills (1992), National Bank (1993), and Frontier Scouts (1994).

The years were often regarded as the best administrative era of Pakistani football. Butt 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. The National Championship also reverted to its previous knockout format.

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.

In 2004, after the PFF came under new management under president Faisal Saleh Hayat, the National Football Championship was phased out in favour of adapting a National League.

A comparable structure continues today in Football at the National Games of Pakistan, which also features provincial and departmental teams. The 2010 KPT-PFF Cup, a cup competition organised by the PFF also featured a similar structure.

In 2017, the Pakistan Football Federation had planned to return the National Football Championship under the same previous format, amidst football and league inactivity since 2015 due to crisis within the federation.

• Bold indicates double winners – i.e. League and Domestic (National Challenge) Cup.
• Note: Various provinces (Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan, Punjab, East Pakistan), divisions (Karachi, Peshawar) or other clubs (Railways) entered teams under various names; all finalists listed can nevertheless be regarded as the 'first' team of the respective clubs with the exception of the 1948 losing finalists, Sindh Blue, who were the second-string team of Sindh.

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.

• Santosh Trophy

• National Football Championship (Bangladesh)

• Football at the National Games of Pakistan

• RSSSF.com - List of champions