Pakistan Premier League

Pakistan's first top-tier football competition began on 28 May 1948 as the National Football Championship, which ended with Sindh Red being crowned champions. The league was a knock-out competition, which remained the top football league in the country until 2004 when the Pakistan Premier League was introduced. 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.

In its early years, domestic football in Pakistan was mainly dominated by departmental and armed forces teams, 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. The National Football League era saw the Karachi-based Pakistan Airlines with most championships, winning the competition nine times with their first league title in 1971, with their last title win in the 1998–99 season.

In August 2003, the PFF came under new management, as the politician Faisal Saleh Hayat took over. Under the new management, the Pakistan Football Federation phased out the National Football Championship and in 2004 introduced the National League Division A which contained 16 clubs, and the National League Division B with 5 clubs with promotion and relegation.

WAPDA became the inaugural champions, thanks to the prolific scoring of their striker Arif Mehmood, with Army finishing second and KRL third.

In 2006–07 season, the National League Division A Football League was renamed to the Pakistan Premier League while the National League Division B Football League was renamed to the PFF League. In the following 2007–08 season, the league was expanded to 14 clubs. For the 2010–11 season the league was expanded to 16 clubs. The two bottom teams at the end of each Pakistan Premier League season would to be relegated to the PFF League, while the top 2 teams in the Football Federation League would be promoted to the Pakistan Premier League.

The Geo Super Football League of 2007, also ran as a parallel city-based league to Pakistan Premier League, held in Karachi and saw record crowds at Peoples Stadium. It wasn’t until 2010 with the next edition that the Geo League came back only to be discontinued due to differences with the PFF.

Despite the revamp and introduction of the Pakistan Premier League in 2004, the domestic setup remained under severe criticism due to the precarious and unprofessional conditions and setup, and continuous domination of departments in the domestic competition, which poached talented players from clubs without any transfer fees or compensation involved. The teams essentially survived on their department sport budgets, with the players sidelined as permanent employees than as professional footballers. Since the PFF had not made serious attempts to lure large businesses to invest in and sponsor teams, the league had a dominance of department and armed forces teams, which resulted in poor attendances, with the best supported teams being the Balochistan clubs such as Afghan Chaman, Baloch Nushki and Muslim FC. In stark contrast, the Karachi Football League, despite being a regional parallel competition, routinely attracted healthy audiences with the highlight being the 2008–09 final between Shahzad Mohammadan and Nazimabad FC where a huge crowd of over 18,000 witnessed the match at the KMC Stadium. Private football clubs are severely strapped for cash and barely surviving a season.

The league was suspended in 2015 due to the Pakistan Football Federation crisis, until the lift on suspension by FIFA on 13 March 2018. The 2018–19 season was organised by two different federations, and was reportedly not recognised by FIFA and AFC. Faisal Saleh Hayat-led Pakistan Football Federation, which was internationally recognised, started the league and non-FIFA recognised Ashfaq Hussain Shah group, which formed a parallel PFF, coming into power by third-party interference through the PFF elections conducted by the Supreme Court a month before the termination of the season completed the event.

After the suspension once again from all football activities by FIFA on 7 April 2021, the 2021–22 season was initially organised by the Ashfaq Hussain Shah group, who again came to power after attacking and taking charge of the PFF office. The tournament was suspended after a few months into the season and then cancelled. Majority of the departmental clubs were also disbanded following the shutdown of departmental sports in Pakistan in September 2021. Departmental sports in Pakistan were restored in August 2022. As of July 2023 however, few departments reportedly remained active in football, and since then became restricted to the PFF National Challenge Cup.

The upcoming season is expected to include only club sides, excluding the departmental teams which would not be able to take part from now on. The expected revamp is followed by the initial first round in the shape of district club championships, which also served as club scrutiny of the elections of the Pakistan Football Federation in 2024. After a second round throughout the country, the district champions clubs would go through the third round at the provincial level, featuring top clubs of the federating units. Following, one or two top clubs from each province and regions are expected to feature in the season. However following the controversial tenure of the interim normalisation committee installed by FIFA, reportedly a parallel short-term franchise based league has also been discussed.